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The Redemptorist Fathers And The Novena Chapel - Part 4 - Novena Mass In The Chapel
In the early and the mid sixties, many of the public particularly Convent girls went to a Catholic service called Saturday Novena Mass run by the Redemptorist priests in an old bungalow converted into a chapel. The Mass was usually held in the evenings and the building was just after the race course on Tambun Road, at the corner of Golf Club Road. The mass was so popular that the place became too small and the service was then held on the front lawn of the building and the congregation spread out filling first the verges and then both the roads.
Eventually the old Novena chapel was demolished as, even with the adjacent roads, the space became too small to accommodate the overflowing congregation.
Situated at that exact location today is the Heritage Hotel, Ipoh. Novena Mass is now conducted in the Church of Our Mother of Perpetual Help (OMPH) in Ipoh Garden. Most people have fond memories of the Tambun Road chapel, especially nearing exam time when (quoting Ken Chan) they tried to seek divine intervention to help them at the critical moment.
The photograph shows a section of the crowd attending the Novena Mass at the old chapel.
To go back to Part 1