St. Joseph of Cupertino
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Joseph of Cupertino. He was born to a poor family at Cupertino, a small village in Italy. His father was a carpenter who was unable to pay his debts and his home had to be sold up. His widowed mother found him difficult to handle and treated him harshly. It is usually said that everyone is good at something, but in the case of Joseph he did not seem to be good at anything. He was also extremely absent minded and did not seem to be able to focus. He subsequently tried to pursue a career as a shoemaker but without any success. At the age of seventeen he applied to join the Conventual Franciscans, but they refused him. Then he was received by the Capuchins as a lay brother, but dismissed after eight months as unsuitable for the order. He was refused help by a wealthy uncle and his mother did not want him troubling her any further. She therefore arranged for him to be accepted as a servant by the Conventual Franciscans. He was sent to work in the stables, as this was deemed the only work he was capable of doing.
At this point he finally seemed to have found his vocation and he became more successful in his work and finally sought to join the order and pursue ordination. He struggled with his studies, but was eventually ordained a priest in 1628. It was at this point that the mysterious phenomenon of his levitating into the air in moments of ecstasy began. However we explain it this occurred at regular intervals for the rest of his life. For some this was a sign of sanctity, for others it was a disturbing phenomenon. It was resolved by the order that he should not celebrate Mass in public, take meals or attend other public functions with his brethren. He was brought before the Inquisition, but they could find nothing worthy of censure. Despite this, he was not fully discharged and was subsequently sent to Assisi where he remained for thirteen years. In 1653 he was removed from his own order and placed with the Capuchins in a remote friary where he was to live in almost total isolation. He was not allowed to leave the convent enclosure, to speak to anyone but the friars or to write or receive letters. Pilgrims sought after him so he was removed to an even more remote location. His being kept in virtual imprisonment by the order continued until he finally died in 1663.
The life of St. Joseph was in many ways a strange one. Everything he had touched in his early years seemed to go wrong and when he finally found his vocation and pursued the religious life his ecstatic behaviour so disturbed people that he was regarded as a nuisance who had to be hidden away. On the other hand, his clear sanctity meant that when complaints were made about his ecstatic behaviour no conclusive charges could be made against him. It would seem that he was so conscious of the divine presence that it would often overwhelm him so completely that it would cause him to rise in the air without warning. For some this was an example of disordered behaviour, for others it was a sign of his sanctity as one who was conscious of the divine presence. It is a peculiar paradox of religious observance that it can sometimes reduce religion to an empty formalism. Hence, someone who seems so caught up in what they are doing that they do not always behave in the expected way is viewed with suspicion. Sometimes the ordinary mass of humanity can be more willing to recognise genuine sanctity than the official representatives of religion. This is what seems to have happened in the case of St. Joseph of Cupertino. Ordinary people recognised his sanctity and sought after him, but his own order regarded him as a nuisance who had to be hidden away for fear of undermining the respectability of the order.
Every society has to have certain norms of behaviour that are regarded as conventional, and view other forms of behaviour as unconventional. The danger comes when social norms are regarded as almost the equivalent of a divine law that must never be breached in any circumstances. There is nothing in the life and teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels that suggests that respectability should be a primary concern of his followers. Jesus himself offended the conventionally pious and respectable people of his time by his seeming disregard for the minutiae of religious etiquette and by actively seeking out the social outcasts of his age and the “lesser breeds without the law”. He said that the scribes, who claimed to be the pillars of light and law, were the ones who were most blind. He commended humility rather than wisdom and learning. It was the pure in heart who see God, not necessarily those who are most learned. He chose as his inmost core of disciples people who were not of any great stature in the eyes of the world.
It should not therefore be surprising that the lives of the saints should often give us examples of people who show obvious sanctity, but behave in ways that seem strange and unconventional. It would seem that St. Joseph of Cupertino was one such. He was not learned, or particularly good at anything. But although he lacked status and learning he had the humility to recognise his limitations. He was given ability to be more conscious of the divine presence that than most people are. It was this that so often overwhelmed him that he behaved in ways that seemed strange. This is not to suggest that if someone suddenly starts rising into the air in a fit of ecstasy that we should necessarily conclude that this is a sign of sanctity. But it is to say that we should not automatically dismiss people if we find their behaviour strange and unconventional. We must look to the overall character of their lives to discern if these things be of God, for a good tree is known by its fruits. We can be so often blinded by our preconceptions about how people ought to behave that we ignore the evidence before our eyes. We often say that we do not find ourselves on the same wavelength with other people, but all this is really saying is that they do not fit with our own preconceptions about how people ought to behave.
Let us pray for a right discernment so that we are able to recognise true holiness without being blinded by our own preconceptions about respectable behaviour. If we have the humility to understand our own strengths and weaknesses then it will be easier to recognise the genuine strengths and weaknesses in others. Above all we must seek by divine grace to acquire that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, for all our doings are worth nothing without charity.
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
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