Define: collective effort

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.