Pohsarang, a sacred place for Catholics

Pohsarang, a sacred place for Catholics

By Tarko Sudiarno

KEDIRI, East Java (JP): Pohsarang is a small remote village on
the slope of Mount Klothok, East Java, which is seldom mentioned
in guidebooks. It is becoming increasingly popular among local
Catholics as a sacred place.

On the eve of every Friday legi (a day which comes once a
month on the Javanese calendar), thousands of Catholics flock to
Pohsarang Church. They gather there on Thursday evening so they
can avoid the heavy traffic on the road leading to the church.

The road winds steadily upward for three kilometers, and it
will become crowded with cars before dark comes.

There Catholics will jointly recite the Holy Rosary prayer,
which is followed by a holy mass called Misa Tirakatan (i.e.,
doing something ascetic, such as fasting) at a grotto which the
Virgin Mary (Gua Maria) stands in.

Beside the altar on which the holy mass is celebrated, there
is a tank of holy water, obtained from a local well. Visitors
wishing to use holy water for their prayers can easily get it
from the taps available within the complex.

The water is potable and is believed to be sterile.

"We have placed a special open tank here for the water, which
is just like bottled Aqua and is safe to drink," said Bernard,
one of those involved in the construction.

The grotto with Mary standing in it is in this small village.
The grotto resembles the same Mary's Grotto in Lourdes, France.
This particular place of pilgrimage has the same shape and model
to the one in Lourdes. The hill and the grotto and particularly
the statue of the Virgin Mary are extraordinarily big compared to
the Gua Maria of Sendang Sono in Yogyakarta.

The Pohsarang grotto is believed to be one of the largest in
Asia.

This building, located five kilometers west of Kediri was
blessed by Monsignor (Mgr.) J. Hadiwikarta, Pr., the Bishop of
Surabaya, in May 1999.

Although the grotto has not been properly furnished, it has
been busy since it was officially opened for the pilgrimage last
year, especially in May when Catholics took part in the Tirakatan
midnight holy mass. Last May, an estimated 7,000 people attended
the mass.

For the Way of the Cross prayer, a special place has been
built, complete with all the 14 statues of the Way of the Cross
depicting the misery of Jesus Christ when he carried the wooden
cross while climbing Golgotha hill.

Each of the statues is almost the size of a man. They were
made to resemble the statues of the Way of the Cross in the
grotto in Lourdes, France.

Pohsarang is part of the history of the early propagation of
Catholicism in East Java. In the 1930s, several citizens of
Pohsarang began to learn about Catholicism from some priests from
the missionary congregation. In 1936, a Catholic church was built
there.

It took several years to build Pohsarang Church, which is
unique in its shape. The architecture is a combination of
Javanese and Hindu tradition. The Majapahit architecture is
evident in the church's entrance gate, bell tower and interior.

The statues belonging to the church, like those of Jesus and
the Virgin Mary, have adopted the model and shapes of Javanese
and Hindu statues found in some temples. The faces of Jesus and
Mary were carved on the temple stones in a typical Javanese motif
so that they do not look European, such as the depictions we find
in many churches in Indonesia. They look like a typical Javanese
man and woman.

The roof resembles the shape of Noah's ark. The roof has been
renovated four times, with the last time in 1999 when a new steel
frame was installed and the tiles were replaced.

The architect who built Pohsarang Church in 1936 was Maclain
Pont, a Dutchman who had done research on the remains of the
Majapahit Palace. His love for the Javanese culture had led him
to build a church which had Javanese architecture.