St. Joseph of Cupertino

And now, some fun finals week inspiration.

For those of you who don't know about good ol' St. Joe, he is the patron saint of students. (This is, obviously, a different St. Joe than the earthly father of Jesus.) He earned this distinction through a pretty awe-inspiring happenstance...

St. Joe was a very poor student. For whatever reason, he had great difficulties with school and with studying. Yet he knew that God was calling him to be a priest. Yes, he knew this, but he also knew that the seminary involves extremely rigorous schooling. He didn't think he'd make it, but he trusted in the Lord and took the plunge.
The night before his final exam, when he would be questioned by the bishop himself, he tried and tried to study, but due to his poor study skills, was only able to learn the materials on one topic.
As he stood in the last place in a line of seminarians, watching them all be questioned so severely, he knew that he could not make it through the questioning. He prayed as the bishop moved down the line, getting closer and closer to St. Joe.
And then something miraculous happened: just as the bishop approached the end of the line, he was called away. He only had time to ask St. Joe one question... a question on the only topic that St. Joe had been able to study.
God is so good!
St. Joe passed and became a wonderful priest, and then a saint! All because he trusted in the Lord, even when things looked really impossible.

And now for my own personal St. Joseph of Cupertino encounter...

I had a ton of statistics homework to do in about 4 hours: 2 weeks worth of homework due and 2 quizzes to take in class that night. I hadn't done a holy hour yet that day, though, and I solved this problem by taking my stat homework to St. Pauls Cathedral and sitting myself down with it right in front of the tabernacle. Study date with the Lord. "Lord," I said, "I hate doing this work and I'm a little worried about getting it all done. Please help me out!"
About 2 hours into my work, I realized that there was no way on earth that it was going to be done by the time I had class. In despair, I whispered, "St. Joseph of Cupertino, help me!"
I only had time to finish one of the homeworks, #8. Homework #9 remained unfinished, and I had not even looked at the materials for the two quizzes. Feeling defeated, I trudged off to class.
I sat through my entire stat lecture, awaiting my fate. As lecture ended, the TA stood up in front of the class and said some words that I will probably never forget:
"Hey, just so you guys know, I think this weeks work was really hard, so we're not gonna take the quizzes today. And you only have to turn in homework #8. You can just get #9 to me sometime next week."
Holy... geez. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Seriously?? I sat there in disbelief for several minutes before the relief and thanksgiving washed over me. "Thank you, Lord!" I whispered. "Thank you, St. Joseph of Cupertino!!!"

So, fellow students, I encourage you whole-heartedly to ask St. Joe to pray for you, this week and always. He obviously has a very specialy place in his heart for all of us, and God has given him a lot of power to help us.

Happy Finals Week! :)