The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Pauca Verba (a few words)
St. Joseph of Cupertino (1603-1668) was an Italian mystic whose life is a wonderful combination of a complete lack of natural ability and extraordinary supernatural gift. He was incapable of passing a test, maintaining a conversation, taking care of a house, or even handling a dish without breaking it. He was called Brother Ass by his fellows.
He was born on June 17, 1603 into a family of poor workers. Because of his father’s debts, he was born in a shed behind the house. He was sickly and often at death’s door during childhood, and at age seven he developed a poisoned ulcer which was later cured by a religious man. He was always despised by his companions who called him a fool. Even his mother wearied of him and shunned and punished him for his lack of any human value.
Later, when he entered religious life he faced worse difficulties. The Capuchins received him as a lay brother (bottom of the ladder) but his inabilities made him unbearable for the other religious. Often he was taken in ecstasy and, oblivious of what he was doing, he would drop the food or break the dishes and trays. As a penance, bits of broken plates were fastened to his habit as a humiliation and reminder not to do the same thing again. But he could not change. He could not even be trusted with serving the bread as he would forget the difference between wheat and rye bread.
Finally, considering that he was a good for nothing, the religious took his habit and expelled him from the monastery. Later, he declared that having the habit taken from him was the greatest suffering of his life and that it was as if his skin had been torn from his body.
When he left the monastery he was told that his secular clothing was missing. He was without a hat, boots, or socks, and his coat was moth-eaten and worn. He presented such a sorry sight that as he walked on the road, dogs rushed out on him and tore his clothes to worse tatters. He escaped and continued along his way, but soon came upon shepherds, who thought he was a homeless troublemaker and were about to give him a beating, when one of them had pity on him and persuaded the others to leave him alone.
He went to the house of his uncle, who, ashamed of him, scolded him and sent him back into the streets with nothing. Reaching his own hometown, he came to the house of his parents, where his own mother verbally abused him.
Finally the superior of the Monastery of Grottela discerned his holiness and decided to take him in as a servant. He was appointed to the stable, and made the keeper of the monastery’s donkey.
It was there that the sanctity of St. Joseph of Cupertino began to be recognized. He was always humble and willing to serve cheerfully. The Superior decided to admit him to the monastery with hopes that he might learn enough to be ordained a priest, but the effort seemed hopeless.
When the time came for his examination to the diaconate, the Bishop opened the Gospels at random and his eyes fell on the one Gospel verse Joseph knew well enough to speak about: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee.”
After a long time of spiritual dryness in which all the consolations of his childhood were withdrawn, a wondrous and mysterious vision took place in his life. From this time on, the life of St. Joseph of Cupertino was changed. He became famous for his ecstasies, miracles and for the gift of levitation, reported by numerous eye-witnesses. He experienced this so often he became known as the flying friar. He began to attract so many pilgrims to the monastery that his superiors had to transfer him from one monastery to another to avoid commotion. Finally he arrived in Osimo in 1657, where he continued to exhibit supernatural manifestations of God’s favor daily until his death on September 18, 1663 at age 60.
Is it possible that Joseph of Cupertino could fly because he made himself so light – getting freed of resentments, that he unloaded possessions, that he dropped the encumbering and burdensome passions that make for war and feuding, that he got rid of earth-binding negativity, status seeking and grudges? That in spiritual things – relational things – psychological things – he weighed nothing before God?
