St Joseph Church-Bukit Timah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 성당 내부

 

 예배실

보통 성당을 생각하면 스테인드 글라스의 울긋 불긋한 창문과

화려한 장식들과 벽화들을 연상하는데

이곳은 내부가 소박하고 창문들도 모두 여닫이 형식으로 되어 있어서

내부의 규모는 컸지만 어릴 때 다니던 시골의 예배당이 생각났다.

 

누구나 들어가서 기도할 수 있게 모든 문들이 오픈되어 있었다.

 

본당 측면에서 본 건물 모습

 

본당 뒷편에서 본 건물 모습

 성당 건물이 중국풍이어서 그런지

예수님의 그림들이나 동상들이 모두 중국인 같은 느낌이 들었다.

 본당을 나와 뒷편으로 돌아가면서 보이는 건물

예배실인줄 알고 무심코 들어갔는데

무언가 분위기가 조금 틀려서 안을 둘러보니

A4크기에 이름과 출생에서 사망한때까지의 연도를 표시하고 사진이 넣어진 돌판들이

진열되어 있고 이름 옆에 꽃들이 장식되어 있다.

 

아무도 없어 물어보질 못하고

나름대로 생각하길

이 성당을 다닌 분들이었던것 같다.

 

 

 

 팜나무의붉은 열매

흐드러지게 핀 진분홍색 보겐빌레아

 성모상

 본당 건물 뒷편에 있는 묘지들

나무 들 뒤로 보이는 묘지들 

 

 묘지 밑 풀밭엔 미모사들이 발길에 민감하게 오그라든다.

성당쪽에서 바라본  힐뷰쪽 산과 하늘

 성당 오른쪽 옆에 있던 CHIJ학교 표시판

 

 CHIJ(초등학교)

 성당 왼쪽 옆에 있는 Assumption English School(중학교)

 

육교에서 바라본 전경 

 

Short History of St Joseph Church 

Indeed, such fighting language by Historian Robert Spencer is especially appropriate when we recall the great sacrifices made by the early missionaries who brought the faith to Singapore. In the 19th century, Singapore was already a thriving port city. While the British ensured that there was money to be made, and jobs aplenty, their jurisdiction of the country extended mainly to the city area. The British authorities cared little for what happens in the the interior of the island as long as the gambier and the pepper found there made their way to the town itself.

Life in the jungle was fraught with danger with the activities of robber bands and secret society gangs filling up the gap in jurisdiction left by the British. Yet filling up this vacuum is also the Catholic Church. Heroic priests brought the faith to the Chinese coolies in the interior. They told them of a God who loved them and had become man, and who reigns not by power m terror and fear so typical of the secret societies and robbers they encounter but through love. They showed their love by living simply with the people, listening to their difficulties, burying their dead, building schools for their children and acting as intermediaries with the British authorities.

In 1846, Fr Anatole Mauduit, of the MEP who had arrived in Singapore two years earlier built a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph’s. By the 1850s, the Church has grown in numbers sufficient to irritate the secret society chiefs who launched a series of attacks on the Christians in the interior, spilling the soil of Singapore with the blood of its first martyrs. Worst still, tigers roamed freely in the interior possibly devouring a coolie a day in the 1850s. When the authorities did not let the body of a poor coolie carried of by a tiger be buried, wanting to use the human corpse as bait to lure the tiger back so that it could be shot. Fr Augustine Perie protested, retrieved the coolie’s body and prepared it for a decent burial, demonstrating that a poor person should never be treated without dignity, in life and also in death.

Yet through all these, our forefathers persisted and clung to their faith. It’s been already 160 years since the founding of St. Joseph Church. As we look to the future, let us always remember where we have come from, never to take our faith for granted and let what has been hard won be drowned in a flood of materialism, indifferentism and ingratitude. St Joseph, guardian of the Holy Church of God, pray for us!

By Nick Chui

Extracted from St. Joseph’s Church

150th anniversary commemorative magazine.

 

위치: 620 Upper Bukit Timah Road