http://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/St.%20Joseph%20Cupertino.htmlWhile, in France, the rising spirit of Jansenism was driving God from the hearts of the people, a humble son of St. Francis, in Southern Italy, was showing how easily love may span the distance between earth and heaven. And I, if I be lifted tip from the earth, will draw all things to myself (St. John, xii. 32), said Our Lord; and time has proved it to be the most universal of his prophecies. On the feast of the holy Cross, we witnessed its truth, even in the domain of social and political claims. We shall experience it in our very bodies on the great day, when we shall be taken up in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air (1. Thess. iv. 16). But Joseph of Cupertino had experience of it without waiting for the resurrection: innumerable witnesses have borne testimony to his life of continual ecstasies, wherein he was frequently seen raised high in the air. And these facts took place in what men are pleased to call the noonday of history.
Let us read the account of him given by holy Church.Joseph was born of pious parents at Cupertino, a town of Nardo, in the year of salvation one thousand six hundred and three. Prevented with the love of God, he spent his boyhood and youth in the greatest simplicity and innocence. The Virgin Mother of God delivered him from a long and painful malady, which he had borne with the greatest patience; whereupon he devoted himself entirely to works of piety and the practice of virtue. But God called him to something higher; and in order to attain to closer union with him, Joseph determined to enter the Seraphic Order. After several trials he obtained his desire, and was admitted among the Minor Conventuals in the convent called Grotella, first as a lay-brother, on account of his lack of learning; but afterwards, God so disposing, he was raised to the rank of a cleric. After making his solemn Vows he was ordained Priest, and began a new life of greater perfection. Utterly renouncing all earthly affections and everything of this world almost to the very necessaries of life, he afflicted his body with hairshirts, chains, disciplines, and every kind of austerity and penance; while he assiduously nourished his spirit with the sweetness of holy prayer, and the highest contemplation. By this means, the love of God, which had been poured out in his heart from his childhood, daily increased in a most wonderful manner.
His burning charity shone forth most remarkably in the sweet ecstasies which raised his soul to God, and the wonderful raptures he frequently experienced. Yet, marvellous to tell, however rapt he was in God, obedience would immediately recall him to the use of his senses. He was exceedingly zealous in the practice of obedience; and used to say that he was led by it like a blind man, and that he would rather die than disobey. He emulated the poverty of the seraphic patriarch to such a degree, that on his deathbed he could truthfully tell his superior he had nothing which, according to custom, he could relinquish. Thus dead to the world and to himself Joseph showed forth in his flesh the life of Jesus. While in others he perceived the vice of impurity by an evil odour, his own body exhaled a most sweet fragrance, a sign of the spotless purity which he preserved unsullied in spite of long and violent temptations from the devil. This victory he gained by strict custody of his senses, by continual mortification of the body, and especially by the protection of the most pure Virgin Mary, whom he called his Mother, and whom he venerated with tenderest affection as the sweetest of mothers, desiring to see her venerated by others, that they might, said he, together with her patronage gain all good things.
Blessed Joseph"s solicitude in this respect sprang from his love for his neighbour, for he was consumed with zeal for souls, urging him to seek the salvation of all. His love embraced the poor, the sick, and all in affliction, whom he comforted as far as lay in his power, not excluding those who pursued him with reproaches and insults, and every kind of injury. He bore all this with the same patience, sweetness, and cheerfulness of countenance as were remarked in him when he was obliged frequently to change his residence, by the command of the Superiors of his Order, or of the holy Inquisition. People and princes admired his wonderful holiness and heavenly gifts; yet, such was his humility, that, thinking himself a great sinner, he earnestly besought God to remove from him his admirable gifts; while he begged men to cast his body after death in a place where his memory might utterly perish. But God, who exalts the humble, and who had richly adorned his servant during life with heavenly wisdom, prophecy, the reading of hearts, the grace of healing, and other gifts, also rendered his death precious and his sepulchre glorious. Joseph died at the place and time he had foretold, namely, at Osimo in Picenum, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was famous for miracles after his death; and was enrolled amongthe Blessed by Benedict XIV. and among the Saints by Clement XIII. Clement XIV., who was of the same Order, extended his Office and Mass to the universal Church.
Prayer:
While praising God for the marvelous gifts He bestowed on thee, we acknowledge that thy virtues were yet more wonderful. Otherwise thy ecstasies would be regarded with suspicion by the Church, who usually withholds her judgment until long after the world has begun to admire and applaud. Obedience, patience, and charity, increasing under trial, were incontestable guarantees for the divine authorship of these marvels, which the enemy is sometimes permitted to mimic to a certain extent. Satan may raise a Simon Magus into the air: he cannot make a humble man. O worthy son of the seraph of Assisi, may we, after thy example, be raised up, not into the air, but into those regions of true light, where far above the earth and its passions, our life, like thine, may be hidden with Christ in God!
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The Angels Who Go and Come
St. Joseph of Cupertino was much loved by the angels, they honoured him by frequent apparitions, and he received many graces through their ministry. One holy soul saw him enter the town of Assisi between two of these glorious spirits, and it was proved in the process of his canonization that it often occurred to him to fly in the air. It was without doubt these blessed spirits who transported him thus, from one place to another, and I will only quote one instance. Going one day to Rome with another religious, and having arrived at the summit of a mountain, his companion said to him, "I see the Church of Loretto," and he pointed it out with his finger; and St. Joseph, after having looked at it, cried out joyfully, "Do you not see the angels who come and go from heaven to this church, and from the church to heaven?" and having said this, he raised himself eighteen feet in the air, and descended six perches further off. This favorite of the angels had for his own guardian so much veneration, that he never entered his cell without making him a profound salutation, and begging him to pass before him.
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St. Joseph of Cupertino
from the Miniature Lives of the Saints, 1877
Like is father S. Francis, God made Joseph great in His kingdom by making him like a little child. When he tried to study he fell into ecstasy. He was turned out of the Capuchins as a useless subject; when they stript him of his habit, he said it was as if they tore off his skin. Received among the Minor Conventuals, he sought to become a priest. He could only learn one gospel--"Beatus venter." Trusting in our Lady, he presented himself for examination; the bishop gave him the gospel to interpret, and was satisfied. His life was a revelation of the gifts of the blessed in heaven. Fragrance sweeter than any earthly perfume exhaled from his flesh and filled the whole convent. It was calculated that he spent half his life lifted from the earth in prayer. Three times he bore men in his arms upward in his flight. The world was transformed in his sight; when he went out, if he met a woman he would say that he had met our Lady or some saint. He looked at a flower, and then bore it upward in the air, crying, "O God, so visible and yet forgotten." He called the troubles of life the war of children with popguns, and obedience the carriage which took men sweetly to paradise. He died, A.D. 1663, saying, "Cupio dissolvi;" then, "Victory, victory!"
Simplicity
God alone is simple by essence; those who become
as little children are most like to God.
"With two wings man ascends above earthly things,
to wit, by simplicity and purity."--Imitation.
Our Lady is the reward of those who humble themselves as little children in the kingdom of God. Once when asked what he cared for most in the world, S. Joseph answered: "I desire nothing but to reside at the Grotella near the image of the Blessed Virgin, whom I venerate and love." When he entered the church of Assisi for the first time, and saw in the roof a picture of the Mother of God, like that of the Grotella, with a loud cry exclaiming, "My Mother, thou hast followed me," he flew to a height of forty-four feet to meet our Lady in the air. He would accept no present but flowers, with which he adorned his picture of the Madonna. Then he said playfully: "My Mother is capricious: I bring her flowers, and she does not care for them; cherries, and she will not accept them. I ask her, then, what she desires, and she answers: "It is the heart which I care for; I feed upon the homage of the heart."
"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little
child, he is greater in the kingdom of heaven."--Matt, xviii. 4. ___________________________
Prayer to the Immaculate Queen O Virgin most pure, wholly unspotted,
O Mary, Mother of God, Queen of the universe, thou art above all the saints, the hope of the elect and the joy of all the blessed. It is thou who hast reconciled us with God; thou art the only refuge of sinners and the safe harbor of those who are shipwrecked; thou art the consolation of the world, the ransom of captives, the health of the weak, the joy of the afflicted, and the salvation of all. We have recourse to thee, and we beseech thee to have pity on us. Amen.