With the life of St. Joseph of
Copertino, we have all the markings of a great drama. Why no one has made his
life into a hit movie is a mystery.
If there was a movie, it would go
something like this:
As the opening credits fade and
the film opens, we meet Felice Desa, a master wagon maker and
a trusted member of the Duke of Copertino’s court. By God’s grace, he got
married to a girl named Franceschina (aka, “Anna”) Donata, a beautiful,
hard-working, holy woman from a wealthy family. Life was good.
Then the father made a generous
but ultimately unwise move. He cosigned on a friend’s loan for 1,000 ducats. Sadly,
his friend defaulted on the loan, and the creditors came after Felice, took him
to court, and won their lawsuit. The once prospering family was now
impoverished and shamed in the community’s eyes. They lost everything,
including their nice home. They had to move into what one might gloriously call
a barn, but that is like calling a single-wide mobile home missing its siding a
“McMansion.”
Keep in mind the context here: It
is summer 1603. The average person, therefore—rich, middle, or poor—essentially
lives the same way they have for thousands of years. Infant mortality is high. Hundreds
of thousands of persons are left widowed or orphaned. Shelter—even in the best
of homes—will neither keep you cool in the summer nor totally warm in the
winter.
But most don’t live in the best
of homes. They live in chink-strewn hovels. To improve their lot or, more
typically, just to get by, they often take loans from lenders who only give
their loans with predatory, exorbitant interest rates. This is true despite the
Church’s having placed usury—the charging of such interest rates—under the
deadly sin of greed.
So this gives us the context for
how Joseph entered the world. Like the Lord he would come to serve, he was born
in a stable. Again, this is where his family moved after falling into financial
ruin. His mother was probably around 32 at the time and had already given birth
to five other children, two of whom were dead. Another one, a boy named Pietro,
would be dead before he reached adulthood. She and her husband were hiding
there in this shack outside the city walls to escape the lenders who were after
Felice to make good on his debts.
Felice, however—his health wasted
by the chagrin and depression he felt over his being ruined—died shortly after
his youngest son’s birth. Had he lived, maybe he could have made a go of things
again. As it was, however, his death essentially condemned his widow and
children to life in that stable.
Now, as stables went, it was reasonably
nice. It had a fireplace and two rooms, a main room and a bedroom. Sadly, it
was also the nicest creature comfort that marked young Joseph’s life, because
his childhood was characterized by pervasive starvation. Given what we know about
the need a young child’s mind for adequate nutrition to achieve optimal brain
development, was the perpetual, gnawing hunger that defined his youth the cause
of his later intellectual problems? It is not improbable.
The future saint’s young years
were also beset by diseases that often marked him as a target. For instance, he
constantly fought with scabies and bug sores.
These were minor, however,
compared to some of his other illnesses. His health was always so bad that his
mother Franceschina took her small little boy on several occasions to the
nearby Convent of St. Francis to ask God for a miracle.
Our Lord Jesus Christ never gave
her the sort of miracle we think of when we think of miracles. He did, however,
preserve Giuseppe’s life, and through a Capuchin monk consecrated to Him, no
less. And that, given all the little guy was up against in a material sense,
was a miracle.
This teaches us something: God
answers our prayers. Sometimes He says, “No,” sure. However, even when He says,
“Yes!” it’s not always in the way we expect or even notice.
Therefore, don’t get down on God
just because things aren’t working out the way you expect or want them to. All
of us need to remember, it’s “Thy will be done.” Totally, right? Because the
prayer doesn’t say, “Thy will be partly done, and my will be partly done: Let’s
meet halfway,” or “My will be done.” Rather, it’s “Thy will be done.” Period.
In any event, as he grew into
adolescence, the young boy tried apprenticing to a shoemaker and to a carpenter
but failed in both. His next apprenticeship in a store was better. However,
shortly after taking it, his father’s creditors obtained from the regional
court an order saying that once Joseph legally became an adult, he would have
to labor for them until he paid off the debt, both the principal and the
interest of his father’s loan. Given the usurious interest rate, this would
have effectively equated to a lifetime of slavery.
However, Joseph had one thing in
his favor that many in his situation did not.
The law said that such a ruling
did not bind him if he became a priest or monk. As it happened, Joseph had an
uncle who was not only a Franciscan friar but a priest whose superiors placed
him in charge of building a convent in the town of Grottella. Correspondingly,
his uncle, Fr. Franceschino Desa, his father’s brother, brought him to live
with him as a lay brother.
However, before this could
happen, he developed a gangrenous ulcer that plagued him for five years.
Then, after his arrival at the
convent, he was judged to be an imbecile, a simpleton. His uncle was forced to
send him home to his mother.
Once there, the bullies began
picking on him, giving him the nickname, “Pippo
Bocca Aperta,” which essentially translates to “slackjaw,” as in a mentally
retarded person whose mouth is open all the time.
In fairness, this is how he
looked when he prayed before the various sacred images in his town’s St.
Francis Church, so amazed was he by God’s grandeur. It was not the posture of
an idiot but of one falling in love with Christ. So though their judgment may
have seemed apt, these ill-hearted
people were mocking what they didn’t know. It’s a salutary lesson for us all
that we don’t mock something we may not fully understand.
He next turned to the Reformed
Franciscans at Casole, but they rejected the possibility that a seemingly
moronic individual could a vocation.
Joseph did not quit, however. He
was convinced Jesus had given him a vocation, so he went to Galatone, the same
place where the Capuchin friar had nursed him back to health. And it was here
that his request for entrance as a brother was accepted. He was 17-years-old.
Sadly, during his novitiate year,
his novice master told him to go home, not because of his low IQ, but because
of his bad health, which was distracting for the others. Understand that his
fellow brothers did not lack charity. It wasn’t like he had non-stop coughing
fits that irritated them to the last straw. Rather, when he got sick, which was
regularly, the sickness made him look a little crazy.
He was also a total klutz. Joseph
was always causing some disaster. Part of it was his naturally clumsiness. This
condition was aggravated, however, by his sudden ecstasies, which often came when
he was carrying plates and bowls that he then proceeded to drop on the tiled
floors. One wonders if he didn’t almost bankrupt the monastery in this way.
Kicked out of yet another
convent, Joseph was angry. You can
imagine why. We can almost feel his level of disappointment. Making matters
worse, while he had come in with little, he left with nothing. He had no shoes
(friars often went barefoot out of poverty), and since he had to leave behind his
habit, he wore only a loincloth. Seeing him this way, shepherds figured him for
a bum—and aren’t bums always bandits?—and thus sicked their dogs on him. They
would have beat him but he just barely got away.
To make matters even worse, when
he returned home, he did not receive unconditional love or compassion. Instead,
his uncle Franceschino and mom berated him for being a loser.
Thanks to Fr. Giovanni Donato
Caputo, his mom’s brother, though, he regained entrance to Grottella but as neither
a monk nor a candidate for Holy Orders. This was a problem because he had
reached adulthood, and his father’s creditors were now looking for him.
Therefore, he spent his days here
praying and weeping before Our Lady’s image in the convent church. A friar let
him sleep on a couch in the basement, and other friars snuck him food. At
night, he would creep up to the church, go before the Virgin’s icon, and weep
some more while whipping himself for his sins. Most of us would probably blame
God if this happened to us. He blamed his peccadilloes, his sinfulness, his bad
choices, the times when he’d been unfaithful. When was the last time any of us—myself
included, mind you—did any sort of mortification for our sins, even though they
were undoubtedly more scarlet than St. Joseph’s?
In any case, it began to happen
that people would unexpectedly come upon him in the church and see him in
ecstasy (i.e., in ecstatic prayer). By not just mentally assenting to but
actually willing union of his sufferings to the cross, Joseph's cross had become
the means to his greatest joy, a more perfect and utterly joyful union with the
Sacred Heart of Jesus. If you want to know what gave him the ability to enter
into ecstasy (and his prayer-induced ecstasies were most likely the ultimate
source of his later ability to levitate), this is a great place to look.
It just goes to show that, while
it's dreadful to endure and something we naturally want to avoid and end as
quickly as possible, suffering is only without meaning if we allow it to be so.
It is our choice to turn our crosses into an extended vacation in Nightmareland
or into something that transcends the pain and becomes the type of joy
experienced by St. Joseph.
Seeing with their own eyes what
an obviously saintly man was in their midst, these friars eventually accepted
him as a lay brother. In this way, God turned Joseph’s tears of sadness into
tears of joy.
This was in 1625 when St. Joseph
was 22-years-old. Two years later, he made his religious profession. On January
30, the local bishop ordained him to the minor orders. Less than a month later,
the bishop ordained him a subdeacon. And less than a month after that, St.
Joseph of Copertino became a deacon upon passing an exam with flying colors.
Well, actually, God gave him more
than a little help. Not being very book smart, Joseph had never been able to
explain any Gospel passage except for one. At his examination, the bishop
randomly turned to Luke 11:27, the passage which reads in part, “Blessed is the
womb that bore thee.” That, wonder of wonders, was the one passage Joseph could
explain.
Consider all this less than
intelligent man had been through, and now, because of God’s ineffable grace, he
was an ordained deacon.
Over the next year, he diligently
studied for the priesthood. This was easy work for his classmates, but not for
him. Far from it.
However, the bishop giving the
exam queried the first postulant, who answered him so perfectly, His Excellency
assumed that all the other seminarians were as equally well-prepared. As a
result, he passed them as a group without asking any of them another question.
And so it was that on March 18, 1628, two days shy of the year anniversary of
his diaconate ordination, St. Joseph received Holy Orders.
Despite his confreres calling him
Brother Ass for his curt lack of diplomacy, his inability to reason in a
logical fashion, and for his total clumsiness, Fr. Joseph of Copertino’s fame
soon spread far and near. Outweighing all other concerns were his poverty and defense
of the poor against those who oppressed or took advantage of them because they
had greater power, his complete and unassailable faith, his fantastic spiritual
direction, and, after a two-year Dark Night of the Soul, the miracles that
attended him on an increasingly regular basis.
At first, people came to watch
him fall into a state of ecstasy while praying. Then, one day, as he processed
into the Church of St. Francis for Mass, his body lifted into the air and
touched down right in front of the altar. Then the same thing began happening
whenever anyone said the names “Jesus” or “Mary.” Once, God lifted him up into
an olive tree.
As you might imagine, the people
were astounded. Wouldn’t you be? I know I would. Astounded? Hmmph. I would
probably be a little scared.
Regardless, the levitations
became more frequent. Sometimes he would just hover in the air, sometimes his
body plummeted to the ground like a dead weight. At first, these prodigies
happened outside of Mass, but then they increasingly happened during the Holy
Sacrifice.
Not surprisingly, people began to
flock to the Shrine of Our Lady of Grottella. Some came filled with faith to
touch the hem of his garment, seeing in St. Joseph of Copertino a remarkable
reservoir of Christ’s grace. Others thought the whole thing was a big fake, so
they would jab him with big pins or place lit candles next to his skin to see
if it would provoke a reaction. It never did, but some people were intent on
trying until something happened. Therefore, the friars often had to appoint a
guardian for Fr. Joseph so he wouldn’t come out of his ecstasies on the verge
of dying.
Soon people were not only
bringing themselves or their sick but their livestock, as well. After all, if
this man was so blessed by God that he could levitate, then certainly God would
hear his prayers for miracles on their behalf. And God evidently did by the
score. It is also said he could talk with the animals.
Like Padre Pio in our own time, despite
all of this evidence of sanctity, some nonetheless accused him of being a fraud.
This was in 1636, and by 1638, he was brought before the Holy Roman
Inquisition, which some have said marks the beginning of his Calvary.
While the authorities adjudicated
his case (during one court appearance, he began levitating), his superiors sent
him to live in seclusion at Assisi, where he spent the next 14 years. Despite
the exile, miracles continued to flow from his prayers to Our Lord. And to
these he added prophecy, for instance name the date of Pope Urban VIII’s death.
In all these ways, Our Lord used
a man who could barely write, who trembled with anxiety when he had to read
aloud, and who was usually not articulate by any stretch. Yet when he spoke of
God, it was as if the song of angels burst forth in such melodious praise that
the most learned of theologians couldn’t hold a candle to his eloquence. The
only explanation is that Our Lord simply infused him with this knowledge.
Take one example. A contemporary
theologian at St. Bonaventure University in Rome wrote Fr. Joseph and
complimented him for so expertly proclaiming the mysteries of theology. This
professor could not understand how to reconcile the complexity of teaching the
sacred sciences with the simplicity demanded of him as a Franciscan. What did
Friar Joseph advise?
St. Joseph of Copertino wrote
back, “When you put yourself to studying or writing, pray, ‘Lord, you’re Spirit
and I the trumpet. But without Your breath, nothing resounds.’”
Because the move to Assisi did
not stop people from coming to see this man while his case was still open, thus
causing even greater controversy than before, the Holy See moved him first to a
hermitage where he was not to leave his cell. News got out, however, that he
was in the neighborhood, and soon villagers from all around came to be near
him.
As a result, the authorities next
transferred him to Fossombrone where Pope Alexander VII pronounced him
innocent. At that point, he made his last transfer to Osimo monastery, where he
spent the last seven years of his life.
It was here that he became sick
and remained ill until 1663. He could not hold down food, and he suffered
amazingly high fevers. All the time, he suffered bleedings under barber/surgeons’
razors in an effort to cure him. Not surprisingly, he did not get better. What
is surprising is that he continued to levitate and perform other miracles.
Things got so bad that on the
Feast of the Immaculate Conception, September 8, 1663, he received viaticum.
Later that evening, he begged for the Sacrament of the Sick.
Ten days later, St. Joseph of
Copertino saw his last miracle. His face to began to shine, to glow, and with a
smile on his face, he went to the house of his Father. He was 60 years old.
After roughly 60 years, he was
declared venerable, and then on July 16, 1767, the anniversary of St. Francis
of Assisi’s canonization, Pope Clement XIII declared him a saint.
In the intervening years, St.
Joseph of Copertino was proclaimed patron of students and those taking tests
and, not surprisingly, of military pilots. So you Top Guns out there, keep this
guy’s number in your cell phone’s contact folder.
Sources:
http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/34750
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