St. Jude Thaddeus is believed to be the Patron Saint of hope and impossible causes. When my brother was about to take the Civil Engineering Board Exam, he mentioned about wanting to visit this church to ask for guidance and enlightenment. It's our first time to visit this church so we used Google Map to locate the place. The first location we went to was just a small chapel dedicated to St Jude. We were quite unsure if it was the correct location since the place was far from what we expected. Finally, we found another location in the Google Map which claimed to be a St Jude church. It's inside a base camp.
One rule they have here is to always wear rubber shoes or any closed type footwear for safety purposes. I had goose bumps upon seeing military walking all over the place with their huge guns.
Finally, in the left corner after the entrance, we saw the St Jude Church.
Apparently, most board exam takers follow a practice wherein they would print the 9 days novena of St Jude, visit 9 churches consecutively, and leave each print in different churches.
In the candle area, thousands of petitions and offerings (i.e candles, flowers, and rosaries) were also left for St Jude.
During my time of taking the board exam, which was 3 years ago, I wasn't aware of all these practices. However, I had an idea that there was a novena prayer for St Jude for taking the board exam. Now that it's my brother's turn to take the exam, I'm glad we went to the church. It's a witness of immense faith and hope coming from students and I think spiritual preparations should also be part when taking the board exam.
That's it for today's blog. See you in my next one!
Sending some love and light
Love, Jane