This weekend is the two day Saint Jude Celebration and for
the last weeks the shrine team have been getting things ready: new hymns sheets developed and printed, Mass
texts re-read and errors corrected, signage made for the pilgrims, hundreds of
bottles of Saint Jude oil labelled, filled and boxed, flowers are being
arranged to adorn the altar, the repository moved from the hallway next to the
shrine up to the office where it is all laid out on tables so the pilgrims have
easy access. Today, Thursday 22nd,
the marquee is being set-up to house the candles which will be lit during the
weekend as well as desks where pilgrims can write out their mass intentions and
petitions for Saint Jude’s intercession.
There is also another
side to the preparation for the celebrations in honour of Saint Jude which came
to me as I was preparing bottles of Saint Jude Oil. This is what I will call
the spiritual dimension. Of course we are all aware the oil is blessed with the
relic of Saint Jude and an accompanying prayer prior to being bottled; the
reason we can only ask for a donation for each bottle the pilgrims take with
them. But in the process of bottling the oil you enter into the pastoral care
of those who will be anointed with the oil; it is in enabling this oil to be used
that we become a link in that chain which culminates in the anointing of a
pilgrim on the forehead with the oil. The blessing of the oil is done in the
name of the God and of His Son Jesus; we ask God to bless the oil as a sign of
his love for us; we invoke the intercession of Saint Jude, Apostle and kinsman
of Jesus and ask that the Holy Spirit be poured into our hearts. At the anointing we again ask God, through
the intercession of Saint Jude, to free us from anxiety and help us in all our
needs. And so even the act of filling oil into a bottle becomes in some way a
pastoral act which is a part of our ministry as Shrine team.
In a similar way many other aspects of the Saint Jude
Celebrations have a value above and beyond their material worth. The things sold in the repository help to
propagate an understanding in and a widening of the devotion to Saint Jude; the
candles bought and lit become a vehicle of prayer – as the psalmist says: let
my prayer come before you like incense; the flowers show our devotion to God
and the desire to adorn everything to his honour. I am sure that other people will be able to
think of other examples of the spiritual side of the Saint Jude Celebrations. The
important thing is to realise that these celebrations function on so many
different levels: the devotion is not limited to the prayer at the shrine but
is an integral part of our lives as Christians and a devotees of Saint Jude.
Fr Michael Manning, O.Carm
