The Soul That Has Learned to Rise
MASS Diléctio Dei
LESSON 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8
GOSPEL St Matthew 22: 1-14
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The world remembers St Joseph of Cupertino because he rose from the ground; the Church remembers him because his heart rose first. A levitation may astonish the senses, but it cannot sanctify the soul. The Church places upon his lips and ours the words of Ecclesiasticus: “The love of God is honourable wisdom,” and in the Collect asks that, as Christ was lifted up from the earth and drew all things to Himself, so we may be raised above earthly desires and come to Him. The marvel of Joseph’s life was not finally that his body sometimes ceased to obey the ordinary pull of the earth; it was that grace had taught his soul no longer to be governed by the world. Before Joseph was lifted bodily, he had been humbled spiritually.
That is why his beginnings matter. Joseph was born at Cupertino in 1603, in poverty and difficulty. He was slow at his studies, awkward in practical work and absent-minded. He failed at trades; he was rejected in his first attempts at religious life; even after admission he proved so clumsy that he was dismissed. Eventually he was received among the Conventual Franciscans in the humblest capacity, caring for animals and doing menial work. God did not begin by revealing Joseph’s extraordinary gifts. He began by allowing him to discover his ordinary insufficiency. His holiness grew, not out of self-confidence, but dependence; not natural brilliance, but docility to grace; not by escaping humiliation, but by consenting to be taught through it.
St Thomas Aquinas gives us the key to the Epistle when he teaches that charity is the form of the virtues. Charity does not merely stand alongside the other virtues; it gives supernatural life and direction to the acts of the Christian soul by ordering them to God as our last end. That is why St Paul’s words are so severe: “If I should have prophecy, and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” Nothing could be more appropriate for the feast of a man famous for miracles. The Church deliberately places the miraculous under judgement. Ecstasies, visions and extraordinary phenomena are not holiness. Even sacrifice, eloquence, theological knowledge and astonishing works cannot replace that supernatural love by which the soul cleaves to God.
And so the Gospel of the wedding feast follows with terrible precision. The king enters and finds among the guests a man without the wedding garment. He has come into the banquet, yet lacks what is necessary to remain. St Gregory the Great, whose interpretation the traditional Office gives us, identifies that wedding garment with charity. Here is a warning particularly for Catholics. One may be visibly within the household, profess the Creed, know the doctrine, defend the liturgy and recognise error, and yet stand spiritually naked before the King. Orthodoxy is indispensable, but it is not a substitute for sanctity. Correct worship is indispensable, but it condemns rather than excuses us if the sacrifice offered at the altar is contradicted by a proud, uncharitable or impenitent heart. The garment by which the King recognises those who belong to the nuptial feast is charity.
Joseph becomes truly instructive here, because his extraordinary gifts were accompanied by extraordinary humiliation. His ecstasies became so frequent that his public life was restricted. Crowds gathered; ecclesiastical authorities examined what was happening; superiors moved him and limited access to him. And here his sanctity became clearer than in any levitation: he obeyed. He did not build an identity around being exceptional. He did not claim that unusual graces placed him above authority or common discipline. If God gave consolations, he received them; if obedience removed consolations, he accepted that too. What mattered was God, not the experience of God.
This is thoroughly Franciscan. St Francis taught his sons to go downwards in order to go upwards: into poverty, obedience, penance and dependence upon Providence. St Bonaventure describes the soul’s ascent to God not as the accumulation of spiritual experiences but as a movement through purgation, illumination and union, culminating in the affections passing over into God. The Seraphic tradition is fiery, but the fire is charity. Joseph belongs to that tradition. His ecstasies were not an escape from the Cross; they were fruits in a life marked by mortification, obedience, misunderstanding and hiddenness.
That is the meaning of today’s Offertory: “When they were troublesome to me, I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting.” Modern man hears fasting and suspects negation. The Church sees freedom. We fast because appetite is a servant and must not become a master. We practise chastity because desire does not determine truth. We keep silence because not every thought deserves expression. We accept penance because the ego must learn that it is not the centre of reality. Mortification is not hatred of creation; it is the restoration of order within creation. We surrender lesser goods so that the soul may become capable of the greater Good.
How necessary this is in our own spiritual lives. We can spend years trying to improve the circumstances around us while scarcely allowing God to change the disorder within us. We imagine we would pray better with fewer distractions, become patient if people were less irritating, charitable if others were more reasonable. Joseph’s life destroys that excuse. God formed him through precisely those things which seemed least promising: failure, misunderstanding, incapacity, restriction, embarrassment. Grace did not wait for Joseph to acquire ideal circumstances. Grace took hold of the actual man and sanctified him there. The question is not what we might become in some imagined life; it is whether we will permit God to sanctify us in this one.
Joseph’s lack of intellectual brilliance is no invitation to despise the intellect. The Church has never canonised stupidity. But she does expose the vanity by which knowledge becomes a substitute for wisdom. One may know many things about God without knowing God in the manner of charity. One may analyse the faith, argue for the faith, correct others about the faith, and yet remain interiorly cold. The Introit is exact: “The love of God is honourable wisdom.” Wisdom in the highest sense is not information about divine things; it is a rightly ordered participation in them. Theology can tell us that fire burns; charity puts the heart into the fire.
Then comes the Communion antiphon: “I am poor and sorrowful: Thy salvation, O God, hath set me up.” There is Joseph’s life. There is ours. “I am poor”: I did not give myself existence; I cannot forgive my own sins; I cannot create sanctifying grace in my soul; I cannot raise myself to Heaven. “I am sorrowful”: wounded, tempted, distracted, carrying the consequences of sin. And then the answer: “Thy salvation, O God, hath set me up.” Not my cleverness. Not my reputation. Not my pious feelings. Thy salvation has lifted me.
And in a few moments that salvation comes sacramentally. The same Christ who was lifted up upon the Cross will be lifted above this altar; the same Christ who draws all things to Himself will come beneath the appearances of bread; the same Charity which Joseph loved will be placed upon our tongues. Here is the true elevation of the Christian soul. Holy Communion is Christ drawing us out of ourselves and into His own life. But the Eucharist cannot be received fruitfully while we deliberately cling to what contradicts Him. The wedding garment must be worn. Charity must be living. Mortal sin must be renounced. Resentment must be surrendered. Pride must be fought.
Carissimi, most of us will never be caught up bodily in ecstasy, and nothing is lacking to our vocation because of it. The miracle we need is greater and more demanding: that an angry man become meek; that a proud man become teachable; that a sensual man become pure; that a resentful heart forgive; that a distracted soul learn recollection; that a Catholic who has spent years knowing the faith finally allow the faith to possess him. These things attract little attention on earth, but Heaven recognises them.
So let us ask St Joseph of Cupertino not that we may share his extraordinary phenomena, but that we may share the charity which gave them meaning. Let us ask to be stripped of whatever keeps the soul heavy: vanity, self-will, bitterness, the hunger to be admired, the need always to be right. Let us ask for the wedding garment. Let us ask for that honourable wisdom which is the love of God. And when Christ comes to us from this altar, let us say with Joseph and with the Psalmist: I am poor and sorrowful; but Thy salvation, O God, hath lifted me up. For the soul that truly loves God has already begun to rise, and the final movement of that ascent will be when grace gives way to glory, faith to sight, and charity remains for ever.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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