Church of Saint Alphonsus | |
---|---|
1°19′19″N103°50′34″E / 1.321812°N 103.842786°E | |
Location | 300 Thomson Road, Novena, Singapore |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Religious institute | Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer |
Website | http://www.novenachurch.com |
History | |
Consecrated | 25 October 2017 [1] |
Architecture | |
Style | new Gothic |
Completed | 1950 |
Construction cost | S$ 54 million |
Administration | |
Archdiocese | Archdiocese of Singapore |
Deanery | City District |
Clergy | |
Rector | Victorino A. Cueto, CSsR [2] |
Vicar(s) | Terence Wee, CSsR [2] |
Priest(s) | Peter Wee, CSsR Simon Pereira, CSsR Vincent Low, CSsR Paul Pang, CSsR Clement Lee, CSsR Terence Wee, CSsR Gerard Louis, CSsR Simon Tan, CSsR |
Laity | |
OCIA coordinator | Simon Tan, CSsR |
Youth ministry coordinator | Sikstus Bapa Atawolo, CSsR [3] [4] |
The Church of Saint Alphonsus, or Novena Church as it is more popularly known, is a Catholic church in Singapore located at 300 Thomson Road. It is not a parish church and is under the care of the Redemptorists. [5] The name Novena Church refers to the novena prayer devotion, [6] [7] for which this church is famous. At the Church of Saint Alphonsus the Saturday novena services usually attract more people than the Sunday Mass services (Catholics generally go to their own parishes to attend Sunday Mass). [8] Having popularised the novena devotion sessions in Singapore, it draws people from the entire country and beyond. The devotions gave name to the surrounding area, Novena. [9]
The Church of Saint Alphonsus was founded in 1935.
The current church was built in 1950 and was designed by the architectural firm Swan and Maclaren. Porticoes were added in the late 1950s to cater to the large and growing number of devotees coming for the Saturday novena devotions. The side walls that existed earlier in the main church hall were removed and grilles added. [10] After being closed for three years for further renovations, the church reopened on 29 September 2017. [11]
The novena devotions to Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a popular novena devotion held each Saturday and which regularly draws thousands of devotees from all faiths to the Church. They were started by the Redemptorists in 1949 in a small chapel and initially saw only a handful of people attending the sessions. However, news of the devotion and reports of many answered petitions soon led to the rapid rise in the number of devotees attending. News of the devotion were mostly spread by word of mouth, but there were the few car stickers distributed by the Church with the caption "Have You Been To The Novena?". [12] [13] The increase in the number of devotees required the church building to be expanded and the porticoes at the sides of the main Church building were added as a result. Currently, there are 10 half-hourly sessions held each Saturday with each session drawing on average 3,000 devotees, with it not being uncommon to find a sizeable number of non-Catholics among the many devotees. [14] The first such devotion in Mandarin Chinese was led by two Spanish Redemptorist missionaries, Juan Campos Rodríguez and Eusebio Arnáiz Álvarez. [15]
The annual procession was started on 21 June 1953 and it has been held every year since on the 1st Sunday of September in honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. [16] It is so popular that it regularly draws devotees from all faiths and backgrounds in the tens of thousands, with there being 30,000 devotees at one point in 1970. [17] The church celebrated its 61st Annual Procession at the present site before the church closed for redevelopment.
In 2011 it was announced that the existing Church building would undergo major renovations, with the Church being expanded in order to be able to cope with the numerous faithful that turn up for the novena devotions every Saturday. [18] The total cost for building the New Church, the Pastoral Centre, the New Admin Block and the underground carparks was $55.4 Million (SGD). The church closed on 1 October 2014, and reopened on 29 September 2017. The Blessing and Opening of Novena Church was Celebrated by Archbishop William Goh on 25 October 2017. [19]
Eucharistic adoration is a devotional practice primarily in Western Catholicism and Western Rite Orthodoxy, but also to a lesser extent in certain Lutheran and Anglican traditions, in which the Blessed Sacrament is adored by the faithful. This practice may occur either when the Eucharist is exposed, or when it is not publicly viewable because it is reserved in a place such as a tabernacle.
The Redemptorists, officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, abbreviated CSsR, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men. It was founded by Alphonsus Liguori at Scala, Italy, for the purpose of labouring among the neglected country people around Naples. It is dedicated to missionary work and they minister in more than 100 countries. Members of the congregation are Catholic priests and consecrated religious brothers.
Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, CSsR was an Italian Catholic bishop and saint, as well as a spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists, in November 1732.
Our Mother of Perpetual Succour, colloquially known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help), is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a 15th-century Byzantine icon and a purported Marian apparition. The image has been enshrined in the Church of San Matteo in Via Merulana since 27 March 1499, and is today permanently enshrined in the Church of Saint Alphonsus of Liguori in Rome, where the novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is prayed weekly.
A novena is an ancient tradition of devotional praying in Christianity, consisting of private or public prayers repeated for nine successive days or weeks. The nine days between the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost, when the disciples gathered in the upper room and devoted themselves to prayer, is often considered to be the first novena.
Novena is a planning area located within the Central Region of Singapore. Novena is bounded by Toa Payoh to the north, Bukit Timah to the west, Tanglin to the south and Kallang to the east. While Novena is not classified as a "new town" by the Housing and Development Board (HDB), the estate of Whampoa within the subzone of Balestier constitutes part of the Kallang/Whampoa New Town.
The Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and Marian shrine in Brooklyn, New York, United States. The shrine is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour.
Marian devotions are external pious practices directed to the person of Mary, mother of Jesus, by members of certain Christian traditions. They are performed in Catholicism, High Church Lutheranism, Anglo-Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, but generally rejected in other Christian denominations.
Saint Joseph's Church is a Roman Catholic church in Singapore. It is located along Victoria Street in the Rochor Planning Area, within the Central Area of Singapore's central business district. The church was constructed from 1906 to 1912 with its foundation stone laid in 1904. The building was built in the Neo-Manueline Portuguese late-Gothic style by the Portuguese Mission. Saint Joseph's Church is noted for its Portuguese-inspired religious traditions, such as the annual Good Friday celebrations.
The Catholic Church in Singapore is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. In 2016, the Catholic Foundation of Singapore reported the Catholic population in Singapore to be over 373,000.
The Church of the Risen Christ is a Roman Catholic church in Singapore. It is located at Toa Payoh Central in the Toa Payoh Housing Estate and was founded in 1971.
Catholic devotions are particular customs, rituals, and practices of worship of God or honour of the saints which are in addition to the liturgy of the Catholic Church. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops describes devotions as "expressions of love and fidelity that arise from the intersection of one's own faith, culture and the Gospel of Jesus Christ". Devotions are not considered part of liturgical worship, even if they are performed in a church or led by a priest, but rather they are paraliturgical. The Congregation for Divine Worship at the Vatican publishes a Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy.
The National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, also known as the Redemptorist Church and colloquially as Baclaran Church, is a national shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help along Roxas Boulevard in Baclaran, Parañaque city of Metro Manila, Philippines. The church enshrines the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, and is one of the largest Marian churches in the Philippines.
The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Roman Catholic church in Singapore. It is located in Hougang, the North-East Region of Singapore, and is within the Serangoon District. It is well known as the oldest Catholic church for the Teochew community in Serangoon.
The Solemn Novena to St. Gerard Majella is held over 9 days in St. Joseph's Redemptorist Church, Dundalk, Ireland. It runs from 8 to 16 October.
The Roman Catholic tradition includes a number of devotions to Jesus Christ. Like all Catholic devotions, these prayer forms are not part of the official public liturgy of the church but are based on the popular spiritual practices of Roman Catholics. Many are officially approved by the Holy See as suitable for spiritual growth but not necessary for salvation.
St. Michael's Church is one of the oldest Catholic churches in the Mahim suburb of Mumbai (Bombay), India.
The Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is a booklet containing a set of prayers including the Roman Catholic novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, that was originally published in Jaén, Spain in 1899. It was then widely republished by American Redemptorist priests in 1927, then ultimately revised by Irish and Australian Redemptorist priests on 23 June 1948.
Alkaff Gardens was a Japanese-style park once located east of the Bidadari Cemetery from 1930 to 1964, on the present site of Cedar Girls' Secondary School at Bidadari, Singapore. In the 1930s, the park was a popular leisure destination for dating couples and families. It featured as its centrepiece an artificial lake, which was drained in 1964.
Juan Campos Rodríguez was a Galician writer, translator, missionary and Catholic priest who belonged to the Redemptorist Congregation. He spent over 15 years as a missionary in Sichuan, western China, until he had to flee the country after the communist revolution. He then lived for a while in Hong Kong and Macau before settling down in Singapore, where he worked as a priest until he died at the age of 88.