Business Description
With the swine flu outbreak in Mexico claiming more than a hundred lives, people are reportedly seeking solace and hope in spirituality and religious beliefs. To assuage their fears, they are praying fervently to St Jude, the patron saint of hope for the hopeless. He is the one who is sought out by those in desperate situations.
In that sense, the apostle is the court of last appeal, as it were, as far as matters of prayers and requests are concerned. Once their prayers are answered, believers are known to express their gratitude by placing insertions in daily newspapers, with a prayer of thanksgiving addressed to the saint, bearing the caption: Thank you, St Jude.
Prayerful appeals and thanksgivings apart, religious icons are increasingly also being utilized as a medium for spreading social awareness about new era diseases. In one such case, at a prayer service in Mexico City, Roman Catholic devotees were seen carrying statues of St Jude in a procession. That’s not uncommon. What was different this time though was that the face of the apostle wore a protective mask – against the swine flu virus. One can only imagine the dramatic impact that might have had with people reaching for their respective masks. Wasn’t St Jude, who listens to and provides succour to the most desperate of cases, wearing one himself?
Many might be familiar with the curious case of the AIDS Mata or Amman (female deity), a creation of a science teacher in Mysore, who did so in a desperate bid to create public awareness of the disease, and to explode the myriad myths associated with it. Like the Mariyamman or Goddess of Pox (chicken pox and small pox), the AIDS Amman, too, acquired curious devotees – to what end, one might ask. Well, the walls of the temple were plastered with everything one needs to know about HIV-AIDS, and there were volunteers at hand to answer questions and generate confidence and hope. This was one way of using superstition to educate people.
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