The St. Jude Church in Malacañang is one the most famous novena destinations in Metro Manila. People come here to pray for various petitions: heal a sick relative, pay a debt, find a husband, or pass licensure board exams. In a friend's case, she actually petitioned to TOP the licensure board exams.
These devotees are individuals that exert cummulative effort towards reaching his or her goal. A student attends classes in a review center by day, reviews his sample questionnaires at night, and then repeats the same routine for several weeks, until it's exam time. He does the work day in and day out, having faith in the centuries-old value of exerted effort. Then, each Thursday, the student and the rest of the devotees come together in St. Jude to join in reciting prayers designed to give words to what the mouth is too overwhelmed to articulate on its own. The prayer is a plea for wishes to come true, a final effort that seems to say "I did everything I could."
Because I've been going to St. Jude for weeks now, I have been asked a couple of times if I'm hopeless. It's easy to have the notion that doing the Thursday novena means desperation. St. Jude is, after all, the patron saint of desperate cases. However, St. Jude in actuality is a place filled with Positive Peters, Hopeful Harriets, and Bright-eyed Barneys. Nothing spells H-O-P-E better than the collective effort formed by individuals, who supposedly have no hope, but comes together to seek it.
Going to St. Jude is a humanizing experience. It's a reminder that, despite everything that is going on my own TV show of a life, I am just a tiny part of a universe filled with people with needs, wants and aspirations. It gives me a fresh perspective, and reminds me constantly that the universe does not revolve around me.
The universe doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me, me, me, me, me, me!
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking me there the first time and until now. Gave me religion and community and I won't trade that for all the TV shows in the world.
Wow! Ang bilis magcomment! Because of that, I will click-click in your blog hehe.
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that you brought me there. Not the other way around. Di ba nga hindi namin alam puntahan yun pag di ka kasama? lolol
The tipping point of Hope is Faith. If you deconstruct the abstract idea that is Hope, you will only find Faith. In itself it does not mean anything.
ReplyDeleteReading the example you gave only makes me see how effort and collective effort as you would call it, contribute to the inherent belief in both an internal force and an external cause of attainment. In any case the effort that you say is not collective but an individualistic view of that external cause interpreted to be the same entity or energy or whatever it is that gives fulfillment. I am aware this is not a question of veracity, nor a verification of uniqueness or commonality to which each of the Novena attendees attribute that external cause. What I am trying to arrive at is that Hope is misconstrued as having form in a collective effort. Along the same thought, I am dividing what you call Hope as a dual-faceted Faith.
The effort of studying and the relentless pursuit of excellence is Faith in ones self - belief in getting the reciprocal that is due the effort. The diligence to attend the Novena is Faith as well - in an external cause to which they implore justice be provided given the effort to both perform the work required to achieve a goal or a wish, and perform that act of following through with an attendance in a communal profession of that Faith.
There is no such thing as Hope. It is just a gratified and intellectualized form of a wish - an extended belief in happenstance.
wow, never been inside but have passed by it a number of times. never lose hope, keep the faith, and don't stop believing. dreams do come true.
ReplyDeletePerfect example of Eat.Pray.Love
ReplyDeleteEat liempo and kare-kare...Yum!
Pray at St Jude...Please! Please! Turn me into a billionaire tomorrow.
Love to go home after...I should really be in bed right now, but nooo, i have two more jeepney rides to go.
~ Endearing Enteng