Ayer Salak — Peninsular Malaysia’s hotbed for vocations
Many are unaware that Ayer Salak, Malaysia’s oldest Catholic Chinese New Village is the peninsular’s ‘hotbed’ for religious and priestly vocations.
Jun 12, 2014
By Percy D’Cruz
Many are unaware that Ayer Salak, Malaysia’s oldest Catholic Chinese New Village is the peninsular’s ‘hotbed’ for religious and priestly vocations.
Fondly dubbed “the Lord’s Vineyard”, Ayer Salak’s St Mary’s parish priest Fr Paul Wong says that no less than 25 vocations have come from this village and are now serving all over the country and even overseas.
At the recent Good Shepherd Sunday commemoration, Fr Wong called around twenty of these religious and priests to ‘return home to their roots’ to be accorded tribute and recognition. However, due to prior commitments only a dozen of them made it back to Ayer Salak. Amidst joyful family members, relatives, and local parishioners, these twelve were welcomed back with much cheer. Among those ‘returning home’ was the now late Sr Juliana Lim IJC.
Records state that the village was founded in the mid-18th century by French missionaries and is now home to some 250 Teochew Catholic families. Some senior members of these families are proud to be able to trace back their ancestry to five generations.
Prominent landmarks in the village are the St Mary’s (old) Church, built in 1848 — which now serves as a multi-purpose hall — and the new Church adjacent to the old one continues to be central places for the village faithful. The Montfort Youth Centre built in 1991, and the day-care home for children, set up by the Sisters of the Divine Saviour or the Salvatorian Sisters are also sited in the village.
The village’s humble beginning can be traced back to the French priests from the Banda Kaba parish of St Francis Xavier. The missionary clerics were presented with some 400 hectares of land by the then British authorities in the early 1880s. A settlement called Maria Pindah was established by these missionaries to convert an indigenous tribe from Alor Gajah known as Orang Mantra.
However, conversion of these asli folks proved futile as many of them shifted back to the jungles to adhere to their nomadic way of life. In the mid 1850s, 16 Teochew families from several parts of the country and China were invited by the local Church to open up the surrounding jungle and to till the land.
Though faced with hardships, the community flourished over time with more families venturing into the area by the late 1890s. Each family was allotted several hectares by the Church as long as they remained steadfast in their faith. Although a small number of young people moved out to seek better prospects, many stayed back to carve a life for themselves. The village remains a tranquil and seren kampung as opposed to the hustle and bustle of the other Malacca tourist centres.
Fr Wong suggested that perhaps the large agrarian setting with the rhythms of sowing, cultivating and harvesting encouraged devotion to matters of the spirit and ultimately resulted in vocations to the religious and priestly life. Furthermore, together with the former IJC Convent, the Gabrielite Brothers, the Salvatorian Sisters and the CDD Formation House a mere 8km out of Air Salak, the locals are nourished with much spiritual food.
St Mary’s parish itself boasts of its very own groups, organisations and societies such as the Parish Council, Legion of Mary, Altar Servers Society, Choir, Charismatic Prayer group, Catechists and Joyful Vanguard.
It is said that the religious state is not a middle way between the clerical and lay conditions of life, but comes from both as a ‘special divine gift’ for the entire Church. In retrospect, the Ayer Salak village continues to answer the call of Jesus to his followers to go and make disciples.
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