Church of St Theresa in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan

A double celebration for the Church of St. Theresa in Nilai - the Parish Feast Day on 1st October 2010 and its Diamond Jubilee this year, marking 75 years of existence!

Exterior view of Church of St Theresa in Nilai, its grotto and an extended tent on its right,
to temporarily house the statue of St Theresa and cater for the expectant large crowd

Previously known as the 'Lil' Chapel on the Hillock or Chapel of St Theresa and founded in the year 1935, it had been elevated to the status of a Parish since 1st February 2010 with Rev. Fr. Raymond Pereira as its first resident parish priest.

In conjunction with the Parish feast celebration of its patroness, St Theresa of Lisieux, my beloved spouse John and I traveled there with two busloads of pilgrims from Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya to participate in its 3rd day Triduum Mass on Saturday, 2nd October.

We reached the Church about 3.30 pm, somewhat too early for rosary and novena at 5.15 pm and the Mass at 6 pm. Nevertheless, it gave us ample time to enjoy the surroundings and the well-decorated Church inside out.

Clockwise from top-left: inside views of the Church of St Theresa, Fr. Raymond Pereira,
Fr. Mari Arokiam with the consecrated Host and the Tabernacle

The Feast day theme was 'A Witnessing Church' with Fr. Mari Arokiam as the main celebrant of the Mass and concelebrated with Fr. Raymond and another priest. In his homily, Fr. Mari exhorted us as baptized Catholics, to love one another, care, share, compliment and encourage, put others before ourselves, be compassionate and kind, etc... meaning doing little things with a big heart like St. Theresa's little way of spiritual childhood to holiness! He beautifully summarized all of it with an imaginary website address: www.jesus.com, to represent: 'witnessing in words and works for Jesus in our community'. As usual, his homily was vibrant and lively, providing much laughter yet provoking us listeners to move forward positively in our spirituality.

The Mass was then followed by procession with the Blessed Sacrament around the Church and ended with adoration and benediction about 8.30 pm.

Collage showing scenes of the procession with the Blessed Sacrament.
Included an image of St Theresa's statue, just to fill the gap. :)

Subsequently, dinner that included nasi lemak, fried meehoon and cakes were graciously offered to all present.

With thankful and grateful hearts for the spirit-filled and blessed evening, we left the Church of St. Theresa around 9 pm and was back home about an hour later. A big THANK YOU to ALL - the Priests and the vibrant Parish community that 'boasts of an international community', as well as George Yeow who organized this half-a-day pilgrimage there. God bless you all!

Church's details:

Church of St. Theresa
Lot 2850 Jalan Besar
71800 Nilai
Negeri Sembilan

Blog: http://sttheresanilai.blogspot.com

Know more about St. Therese of Lisieux or Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (the Co-Patron Saint of Missions and a Doctor of the Church) at :
- Wikipedia
- Society of the Little Flower

Some lovely quotes of St. Therese of Lisieux,
whose spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love :

• A word, a kindly smile, will often suffice to gladden a wounded and sorrowful heart.
• Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.
• Nothing is sweeter than to think well of others.
• My only desire now is to love Jesus even to folly.
• Our Lord needs from us neither great deeds nor profound thoughts. Neither intelligence nor talents. He cherishes simplicity.
• Let us go forward in peace, our eyes upon heaven, the only one goal of our labors.