The flying saint

Joseph's Jubilee

His name was Joseph Maria Desa. He was born in Cupertino, a small village between Brindisi and Otranto, in the kingdom of Naples on 17 June 1603 and died in Osimo in the Marche region, on 18 September 1663. He was a Franciscan Conventual Friar. Benedict XV beatified him on 24 February 1753 while Clement XIII declared him a saint 14 years later on 16 July 1767. This year, 2003, is the fourth centenary of his birth and in order to celebrate it, the Friars Minor Conventual (the Order he belonged to in his lifetime) have organised a series of extraordinary events, which will take place in the three towns where the saint lived: Cupertino, Assisi and Osimo. In Cupertino, Joseph was born and spent his early years; his childhood home, the small friary where he began his religious life, and the shrine dedicated to him can be found in this little town in the south of Italy. In Assisi, St. Francis' birth place, Friar Joseph spent 14 years; and in Osimo, in the Marches region, where Joseph spent the last years of his earthly existence and his body is kept in the crypt of the shrine bearing his name.

The special events, which include pilgrimages, study seminars, conventions, days of prayer, meetings and spiritual retreats will take place throughout 2003, which has been declared the 'Jubilee Year of St. Joseph of Cupertino'.

'The opening ceremony of the 400th anniversary of St. Joseph of Cupertino's birth was celebrated on 18 September 2002, the day of his liturgical feast' explains Fr. Giulio Berettoni, rector of the shrine of St. Joseph of Cupertino of Osimo. 'Here in Osimo, we held a solemn liturgical function presided by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Also present were bishops from the Marches region, parish priests from the city of Osimo, Friar Joachim Giermek, the General Minister of the Friars Minor Conventual, various civil authorities and a great crowd of the faithful.'

St. Joseph of Cupertino is a very special saint. He came from a family which was quite well-off economically. However his father, Felice Maria Desa was up to his neck in debt having signed his name on some of his friends' bills. His friends then disappeared, and he was left to pay their debts. He was wanted by the police and was forced to live clandestinely to avoid ending up in jail. When his wife, Francesca Panara was about to give birth to Joseph, the police arrived for the nth time and the woman was obliged to hide in a stable where she gave birth. Joseph was thus born in a stable just like Jesus and St. Francis.

The child lived practically without a father. When he reached school age, he was only able to attend for a few months before taking ill with a cancerous ulcer which left him bedridden for five years. He was healed miraculously, through the intervention of the Virgin of Graces of the nearby Galatone shrine, to whom the young Joseph was very devoted. However, he was now an adolescent and too old to start school. He decided to take up a profession and began attending a shoemaker's workshop. He didn't last long there though; he was too absent-minded and distracted, as if he were enraptured by an inexistent reality. The people he lived with began to think he was retarded and forgetful, and they started ironically calling him 'gaper'. As a matter of fact, Joseph, on those occasions, was in contact with an invisible world, the spiritual world, and was 'enchanted' by the celestial entities his eyes were able to perceive. These ecstasies began repeating themselves with greater frequency making him unreliable at work and he was thus fired.

A humble beginning

Having failed to learn the shoemaking trade, he tried his hand at many other professions, yet to no avail. Thus, at 19 years of age, he decided to become a religious. It was an aspiration he had had since he was a child. He wanted to enter the La Grottella Friary, near Cupertino, where he often went to pray. However, this convent belonged to the Conventual Franciscans, and two of his uncles were already friars of this Order.

He thus turned to the Observant branch of the Franciscan Order, yet his application was rejected straight away. He then tried with the Capuchin Friars of Martina Franca who welcomed him. He entered the noviciate as a lay brother, yet eight months later, because of his tendency to become distracted, he was sent away as he could not seem to do anything right.

His mother and his uncles called him a good-for-nothing, but Joseph did not lose hope. Through his continued prayers and tears, he was accepted as a servant at the Franciscan Friary of La Grotella near Cupertino. He was given the friars' habit and put to hard work taking care of the horses. At about this time, Joseph began to change. He grew more humble and gentle, more careful and successful at his work. He also began to do more penance. Now, it was decided that he could become a real member of the Order and start studying for the priesthood. They pleaded his cause to their superiors and eventually the young Joseph was welcomed into the Order of Conventual Franciscans.

In the La Grotella Friary, Joseph became an extraordinary example for all the religious of the community. When he prayed, he often went into ecstasy, arousing wonder and astonishment among his fellow friars and the people who saw him. Joseph was still practically illiterate however and thus began studying night and day but with little success. He learnt to read with the greatest difficulty and his writing was worse. Nevertheless, he succeeded in being ordained, and the story of his success is one of the mysteries of grace by which Christ Himself shows us that He chooses whom He wants for His priesthood no matter what regulations that may be made. It came about in this way. Minor Orders in those days were easily conferred, and even the subdiaconate, but for the diaconate and the priesthood, a special examination had to be passed, in the presence of the bishop himself. The bishop opened the New Testament at haphazard, his eyes fell upon the text 'Beatus venter qui te portavit', and he asked Joseph to discuss this. To the surprise of everyone present, Joseph began, and it seemed as if he would never end; he might have been a master of Theology lost in his favourite theme. There could be no question about his being given the diaconate. A year later came the priesthood, and Joseph had to once again undergo this ordeal. He was examined with a number of others. One by one the first candidates were tested, and their answers were far above average. In the end, the more than satisfied bishop cut the examination short, and passed the rest unquestioned. Joseph was among the fortunate candidates who were asked nothing, and was ordained along with the rest. He was twenty-five.

The Inquisition

Joseph's saintly reputation spread far and wide very quickly. People came to the friary to speak with him. The Provincial Superior decided to make the most of his sanctity to encourage the other friars and he ordered him to preach in friaries. Wherever he went, Friar Joseph was always followed by a large crowd. One member of the clergy was jealous and wrote anonymously to the Holy Office saying: 'In Apulia there is a friar who is behaving as if he were the Messiah and going about with a crowd of followers.' The Holy Office intervened immediately and Friar Joseph was called to Naples, to defend himself before the Inquisition Tribunal.

He was subjected to three trials and yet even before the judges he went into ecstasy and rose up into the air as happened to him often. The judges, frightened, didn't have the courage to condemn him and they sent him to Rome. This time, Joseph was interrogated before the Pope, Urban VIII, and so great was his joy at seeing the Vicar of Christ, that he went into ecstasy floating high in the air above the Pope and the cardinals gathered there. Having witnessed such a miracle before their very eyes, the cardinals all became great admirers of this humble friar.

Friar Joseph was never condemned, but remained 'under suspicion' by the Inquisition. The judges of the terrible tribunal always kept him under control, and every now and then, in order to lessen and hinder his popularity among the faithful, they intervened with restrictions, prohibitions and orders to change friaries. Friar Joseph was obliged to live in exile, yet wherever he was sent, the crowd flocked to see him. In 1639, he was in Assisi for 14 years. His reputation for saintliness preceded him, and he was welcomed to this little town by an enormous crowd. The deputies of the city, gathered together for a plenary meeting, attributed him with honorary citizenship, and he welcomed this news with tears in his eyes declaring, 'Now I am a fellow citizen of my father St. Francis.'

In Assisi, the ecstasies and other mystic phenomena continued to increase. A celestial perfume emanated from his body at all times. Many sick people were healed through touching his habit. Among the many visitors, there were many illustrious ecclesiastics, famous theologians, bishops, cardinals, princes and princesses, knights and ladies. The Venerable Infanta Mary of Savoie was one of his penitents. The Lutheran Prince of Brunswick converted after attending one of Joseph of Cupertino's Masses. Following Joseph's advice, Prince Casimiro Waza decided to give up the idea of becoming a Jesuit novice and returned to Poland to ascend his country's throne.

But in 1650, an order by Pope Innocent X once again turned Friar Joseph's existence upside down. He was accused by the Inquisitor of Perugia and sent to Pietrarubbia, to a desolate friary belonging to the Capuchin Friars where he was to remain a prisoner, in a cell, without speaking to anyone, not even to other friars. He even had to remove his ash-coloured habit of the Franciscan Conventuals, and put on the brown habit of the Capuchins. He obeyed, but his suffering was so great that he couldn't hold back his tears.

No-one knows how, but the news of his presence in Pietrarubbia soon spread, and one morning, as Friar Joseph left his friary to celebrate Mass, the church suddenly filled up with a crowd of the faithful. The doors became unhinged and several faithful climbed onto the church's roof which they removed so as to see the friar in ecstasy more easily. From that day on, the Friary of Pietrarubbia knew no peace.

The Inquisition authorities intervened once again by transferring Friar Joseph to Fossombrone, another hiding-place where the same regulations were enforced. In 1657, six years before his death, Joseph was returned to his own Conventuals, and he was sent by them to the friary in Osimo, in the province of Ancona.

In Osimo, Friar Joseph lived in three little rooms which have been left as they were when he died. He led a retreat lifestyle; he avoided meeting people, also because his health was precarious. He put up with the infirmities of old age and his illnesses with peace and tranquillity, without ever complaining. He died on 18 September 1663.

Father Giulio Berettoni

The earthly existence of Friar Joseph of Cupertino was rich in charismatic gifts. However, the phenomenon which attracted the most attention occurred during his disconcerting ecstasies. Chronicles recount, as we have already said, that he need only hear the name of Jesus, of the Virgin Mary, or of a saint before going into an ecstasy. He used to let out a wail and float in the air, remaining suspended between heaven and earth for hours. An inadmissible phenomenon for our modern mentality.

'To doubt is understandable,' Fr. Giulio Berettoni, rector of the Shrine of St. Joseph of Cupertino in Osimo tells me 'but it isn't justifiable. If we take a serious look at the saint's life from a historical point of view, then we see that we cannot question his ecstasies. There are numerous witness accounts. They began to be documented in 1628, and this continued until Joseph's death in 1663, i.e. for 35 years. In certain periods, the phenomenon is recorded to have taken place more than once a day. It has been calculated that Joseph's 'ecstatic flights' took place at least 1,000 to 1,500 times in his lifetime, perhaps even more, and that they were witnessed by thousands of people. They were the phenomenon of the century. They were so sensational and so public that they attracted attention from curious people from all walks of life, Italians and foreigners, believers and unbelievers, simple folk, but also scholars, scientists, priests, bishops and cardinals. They continued to occur in every situation, in whatever church in which the saint prayed or celebrated Mass. It is impossible to doubt such a sensational and public phenomenon which repeated itself over time. It is also worth noting that these events occurred in the seventeenth century, the time of the Inquisition. Amazing events, miracles and healings were labelled magic and the protagonists ended up undergoing a trial by the civil and religious Inquisition. In fact, St. Joseph of Cupertino underwent this very fate because of his ecstasies. But he was subjected to various trials without ever being condemned; final proof that these are sensational events, but also real, extraordinary and concrete facts.'