Today is the feast of one of my personal patrons, St. Joseph Cupertino. He is one of the patron saints of pilots and one of the patron saints of those students taking exams.
Prayers to him work. I know this from experience. He was "mentally challenged" and I love the story of his examination to be allowed to be a priest.
Apparently, seminarians of religious orders would meet with the Bishop and his team of examiners before Ordination. The examiners would open the Scriptures several times at random and the students would have to give the age-old four-fold interpretation of the passaged pointed to by the examiners. This four-fold interpretation would include a theological interpretation, a pastoral interpretation, an allegorical interpretation and an eschatological interpretation, that is pertaining to the end times.
Being mentally challenged, barely able to read and knowing little Latin, Joseph was put at the end of the line by his fellow seminarians, who thought perhaps, the examiners would give a little slack to the last participant.
However, when Joseph was standing before the team of examiners, the first passage they randomly selected was the Annunciation.
Joseph had an idee fixe about the Annunciation. There was nothing humanly possible he did not know about that passage in Luke. He spoke for 45 minutes.
The examiners said something like this, "Well, it is obvious you are an excellent Scripture scholar, so we are not going to ask you to interpret another three passages."
Joseph would elevate at the Consecration. Some of the brothers in his Franciscan monastery thought he was possessed. So, they got the priest to start an exorcism on him and during the prayers Jesus, Joseph and Mary appeared to all in the room, confirming that Joseph was full of the Holy Spirit and not demonic ones.
Pilots, pray to him and students taking exams, pray to him.
He is a dear, dear saint.
