St. Joseph of Cupertino

0:00Hi, I'm James Perlthrow, Associate Professor at the Augustant Institute Graduate School of Theology. We hope you've enjoyed listening to and learning from our professors on this and all our podcasts. The Augustant Institute graduate school exists to make Christ and His Church better known and loved through the exercise of academic study. With St. Augustine as our guide, we focus on the narrative of Scripture and the evangelization of the culture. Community and students alike immerse themselves in the rich sources of the Catholic faith, drawing upon sacred Scripture, the catechism of the Catholic Church, and the writings of the fathers and doctors of the Church. We have 550 students and over a thousand alumni serving the Church in parishes, dioceses, schools, the Academy, Apostolents, the Domestic Church, and even the secular world. With master's degrees in theology, pastoral theology, Catholic education and biblical studies, our programs are for anyone looking to go deeper in their faith.

1:00Are you interested in studying theology with the professors of this podcast? Earn your degree online or on campus in St. Louis, Missouri. Apply now for the coming term of study. Learn more at Augustant.edu. You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustant Institute, an Apostolid helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. Welcome to Form Now. I'm Tim Gray, President of the Augustant Institute, and joining me is a special guest and a dear friend, Dr. Sean Inners, who is a professor here at the Augustant Institute, as well as at St. John Viana Seminary in Denver. And Sean is also one of the co-founders of the Augustant Institute. He was here at the very beginning of the founding of the Augustant Institute and was one of our pillars. And we're going to talk about St. Joseph of Cupertino. St. Joseph is an interesting Franciscan, and he was a simple soul, a holy soul.

2:04And probably the best thing to do, he's right at the beginning of the 17th century. And so maybe we want to place him where he's at as a Franciscan at the beginning of, well, at the story of what's going on with the Franciscan order at that time. Because a lot of people don't know that the Franciscans start into having some different groupings in some different development in the Franciscan order. So you want to talk about? Yeah. The Franciscan movement, which was pretty much a solid singular expression under what's generally referred to as the Order of Friars Minor, existed in relative peace for about 300 years after Francis. So the Francis died in 1226, and the Franciscan order, which he founded, obviously begins about the year 1209, 1210. And until about the time of the Reformation, actually, they really did have a kind of unified expression under that one title, Order of Friars Minor.

3:06And it's not until certain tensions developed, we'll say, between that group, which is referred to as the observance, and those which are called conventions. So the conventions is the group that St. Joseph Cupertino belongs to. And they were thought to be somewhat lax at the time, because they wanted to live in larger groupings. And larger groupings tend towards more property. More property, something that looks more like monasticism than the kind of ideal that St. Francis had in mind when he founded the Order, which is very small groups of men living in poverty together, you know, hand them out, really. And without property, large convents require endowments and things like that. And cozy relationships with benefactors and that sort of thing. So there were two movements, really, the conventions.

4:09And then later on, the group that we call the Capitons, came to be called the Capitons, who were strong observance of the original rule of St. Francis. And the Capitons and the conventions actually come to be recognized as separate religious orders, although under the title of Friars Minor, about this time. A little earlier, 16th century, by the time we get to St. Joseph in the 17th century, these are stable divisions in the Francis and family. So the ones who are trying to be observant, they're trying to really, they probably see themselves as more radically going back to Francis' charism. That's right. What he really wanted. That's right. And smaller groups, probably more at tenorant. Yeah. Yeah. Several elements which were common to the original primitive Francis can ideal. As we just mentioned, smaller groupings, the Capitons, when they break away, it's part

5:12of their rule that they want to have eight to twelve Friars in each Friary, no more. They want to have hermitages because part of the Francis can ideal was being able to get away for extended periods of prayer. Once again, conventional life tends to be less aromatical as the term goes, right? Less the spirit and charism of the hermit. So it's the Capitons, even in their habit, actually, the Capitons have a habit which is distinct from the OFMs because they don't have this little coppa thing here. They have a long hood which is attached to the habit. And that's a very important thing. This is supposed to be the original kind of habit that's eight Francis wore. That's a kind of badge or emblem of their desire to return to the original charism of Francis, who famously said that the rule he had written should be followed as he said, Cine Glossa

6:18and the Latin, without gloss, without apology, without interpretation, simply do what I have suggested must be done as a part of this charism I've received from God. So well now let's take it back to the early 17th century. St. Joseph, Cupertino, he's born what? 1603? 1603. And very poor family. Yeah. Very simple family in Italy. Yep. So actually born Cupertino's on the heel of the boot. The heel of the boot. Yeah. So it's south-eastern. It will be the name of the kingdom of Naples at the time. And he is born in abject poverty. His father died before he was born and had piled up some debts. And so Joseph is actually born in a stable, which is an interesting, you know, a crystallological

7:19connection. So he, like his master, he's born in a stable. And that points towards his, I would say, predilection for the Franciscan charism, right? Because it sort of suggests the trajectory of Franciscan minorities, simplicity, poverty, that sort of thing. That is a landmark. Yeah, when you think of being born in a stable, I think of the Nativity Sets. And of course, St. Francis is the one who started that whole devotion or that whole practice of having an Nativity set. Yeah. Because he's so, yeah, I talk about the Christmas crush of Franciscan. That was a really big part of his spirituality. He was the originator of it. Yes. It really was. He's a, you know, in Franciscanism, they refer to the crib and the cross, right? So the poverty of Bethlehem is part of the, you could say, moral imagination of Franciscan

8:23ism, the idea that our Lord enters his incarnation in the poverty of, you know, the stable, and it's really sensory, you know, the idea of the sweet smell of the hay, the warmth of the animals, the simplicity of that domestic agrarian kind of scene, is fires the imagination of Francis. And in a certain sense, he's always returning there. And his, that special celebration of Christmas with the crash, he's typically seen garbed as a deacon because Francis was actually a deacon. And he's seen typically garbed as a deacon in the presentation of the Christmas crash as a kind of, you know, critical part of the original Carigmyr Proclamation of the Faith is the poverty of our Savior. And so that's one of the reasons I think why it filled his imagination so, so vitally.

9:28I love that because, you know, Francis himself coming from a family of wealth and means, of giving all that away, but he's even more blown away that his Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Son of God, gives up all privileges, titles and luxury to become impoverished for our sake, you know, by his poverty we are made rich. You know, and so it's so stunning that St. Joseph of Cupertino is born and a stable, and he's going to become a Franciscan. So, you know, talk about St. Joseph in his early years. You know, he's a simple lad. And I think if I remember the story, he tries to join the Franciscans and kind of gets rebuffed and kind of kicked out of several different groups. Yes, he does. And kind of bounces around, I didn't think he was worthy. Right. And probably in an earthly sense, he wasn't, you know, he had difficulties. He was apparently somewhat inept, incompetent, you know, not educated.

10:36Not educated, yeah, obviously coming from poverty. And that was the original reason for his rejection by the conventions. The group he actually ends up spending his life with. The conventionals originally sent him away because he lacks education. He goes and tries with the capitions and the capitions sent him away because he apparently fell into ecstasy too often, which is an odd impediment, a religious life, you think. But he tried to enter, because he didn't have education as a laborer, so without the intention of seeking priestly ordination. And laborers are supposed to get stuff done, you know, wash the dishes and be very practical. And if you're falling into ecstasy all the time, which was the case with St. Joseph from a very early age, from eight apparently, he began having these ecstatic experiences and

11:38actually got the nickname of, well, what the Italian means is a gap, right? And his mouth would just be open because he would fall into ecstasy and lose his sense of what was around him, which only sort of added to his neck to two. Yes, it was poor kiddie's. It was poor kiddie's. If he's a bit clumsy, not as well educated and sharp, and so you're probably worried about his mental acuity. And all of a sudden, every time he prays or reflects, he's going into these ecstasy, he's not explaining it for everybody, showing a little bit more what this means. What is he going to ecstasy? And what does that mean? Well, these ecstatic states are common for people in advanced stages of the spiritual life. And what it really involves is God's capturing the powers, the person with whom he is entering into a deeper relationship.

12:39So spiritual theology teaches us that at the height of mystical evolution, God captures the intellect, captures the will, and fascinates the imagination. So God basically makes himself the very center of the attention of the person who falls into the state, and it's happened in the lives of many saints. The Catherine of Siena would fall senseless every time she received Holy Communion, for example. She would lie as though dead after receiving Holy Communion. St. Francis had similar things happening to him. He would simply become insensible to external stimuli because he was so entranced by the divine presence and power. And that made him appear to be gaped mouthed, just incapable of handling ordinary things in life.

13:39He ends up being kicked out of the capitions, as I mentioned, and goes back to the conventional's. Does so, once again, this is sort of full circle in a certain sense, he becomes a stable hand. He goes back and volunteers. Please let me work in your stable, and at least I can live on the margins of Francis' life. So full circle, he returns to the stable from which he originally came. In that circumstance, the conventional see his humility, his minority, his sanctity, they come to appreciate the quality of his soul, and so he is finally accepted into the convent and becomes a brother and eventually a priest. And in rather short order, I mean, apparently they're impressed enough. I think he left the capitions in 1620 and he's ordained in 1625.

14:46So they rather quickly recognize that he's been touched by God. And this is a different group. This is the conventional. But it's a different group of conventions than when he first tried to join the... Well, yes. Different. Yeah. He moved from convent to convent or monastery to monastery, friary to friary. As a matter of fact, he was bounced around because of his particular gifts for quite a number of years and actually for almost 35 years was under close watch. He said something about his character that he keeps getting rejected and rejected. Yet he perseveres. He clearly has a deep sense that he's called to be Francis' kin. He doesn't go and try to join the Dominicans or he doesn't go searching for the Benedictine. He really felt called to be Francis' kin. As I said before, I think it's that humble sense of who he really is before God.

15:49And he had, apart from the difficulties of his clumsiness and aptitude, lack of social skills, he also had a temper which might not be all that surprising given all the stumbling and dropping of things he's doing. He probably feels as though he's in a certain sense being thought little of which is St. Thomas' definition of anger. It's typically fomented by that kind of sense of one's loneliness. That's often the reason people get angry. He had to struggle against that. He didn't volunteer for his minority at first. So it's part of the divine project to come to recognize things which are difficulties, things which humble us as gifts, really.

16:50And I think that's what he did. That's what he did. I love the idea that God uses our very weaknesses to refine us the St. Thomas. Exactly. When we think about him going through these different trials of rejection, rejection, rejection, he finally gets accepted. But I love even then he says, I'll just be a stable boy. He doesn't say, I deserve to be a Franciscan. And so he's come to a different level of humility it seems at that entry. And that's exactly, as I mentioned, what seems to be the refining experience for him. He finally settles on not being a Franciscan. And that's what makes him humble enough to be a Franciscan. I love it. Yeah. So yeah, it's a beautiful story. It's a really beautiful story. I'm struck when we talk about the mysticism that he had.

17:52These ecstatic experiences, you know, Teresa Avla talks about how these are gifts from God. One does not work oneself up to, of course, holiness disposes one, but it doesn't, they're gifts from God. Yeah. This kind of spiritual union with God. It's pure gift. And when you think about just this humble, simple boy who loses his father before he's born, he raised an abject poverty, not well educated. And yet he has a heart for the story of Saint Francis and the story that God became simple and humble and this draws him to Christ. And Christ just seems incredibly lavish in his gifts because Joseph seems to fulfill what Paul talked about in the first Corinthians that God does not choose the wise of the world or the powerful or the eloquent or the great, but what's lowly and despised. And he really seems to be the poster child for that passage of Corinthians.

18:54Well, yeah, and there are many of those in the Francis' family just because of its minority. But, you know, and interestingly enough, you know, it's our blessed mother's magnificate where she speaks of lifting up the lowly. And in the end, that's the peculiar charism of Saint Joseph of Cupertino. He ends up being lifted up and his lowliness in a certain sense, well, what we're referring to. That's the point that I got it. And that was very funny, but he was known for levitating. He was known for levitating. To describe that for people. People aren't used to running into people levitating. What does levitating mean? Once again, levitation is in the spiritual life characteristic of the same dynamic that we were speaking of before, where God captures the powers. Well, he doesn't just capture the spiritual power. Sometimes he captures the whole physicality of a person. And we'll literally lift them up in the air. And this also happened to Saint Teresa of Avila.

19:56She says in her autobiography, when she recounts her experience of levitation that she was very embarrassed by it and asked God to put her down. But, she was overwhelmed by the power, the divine power expressed in the very fact of lifting her off the ground. She recognized his God's strength and power in the senses. She realized that she was so fragile and small a creature that it is nothing for him to just lift her up. This happened many times in the life of St. Joseph Gubrattino, over 70 recorded instances of his being observed to have risen while saying mass or while saying the divine office and things like that. Or even just at prayer. There's a famous story of his rising up above the high altar and assuming a kneeling

21:00position, but in midair, right in front of the whole congregation. So it's a remarkable gift. I've never seen anyone levitate. I do know people who have seen people levitate. And they say it's very moving. It's awe-inspiring when you meet somebody of that level of holiness, you can say. I love the image that you have from our lady, from her magnificat. Yeah, that's right. The goll raise up the lolly. Yeah. And there's an interesting dimension to this too that remember Chesterton says the angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. And it falls into the same pattern as we were saying, right? That minority and the smallness of Franciscanism, the surrender to God in the pursuit of sanctity, gives one a sort of lightness of being, right?

22:04Minority means you don't take yourself too seriously. And this is also characteristic of sort of, you might say, the comedic dimension of Franciscanism, you know, Francis like to be the clown, the Jean-Glure, the person who would perform, you know, in our almost comedic fashion, a fool for Christ is another way of putting that. Which I think, Francis is intentional in terms of imitating Saint Paul, right? Because Paul talks to the Corinthians again who were puffed up with rank and social status, possessions, and all those things that people measure themselves against others by. And Paul will talk about being a fool for Christ's sake. You know, Paul will talk about, hey, we apostles are made as spectacle. You guys are, you Corinthians are esteemed and respectable, but we apostles, we're a spectacle and we're mocked and we're laughed at and we're fools for Christ's sake.

23:04And I think this idea, this kind of humility and this kind of becoming or accepting the idea of being a fool for Christ is deeply biblical. Yeah, very. Very much so, very much so. And obviously as we were saying before, that was Francis's idea and his ideal, right, to take the biblical ideal without qualification, without apology, without, you know, without excuse. And that's very much present in the Franciscan thing. Going back to Chesterton, he has a beautiful section in his biography of Saint Francis, which is very much worth reading. Everybody should read that book. You know, he wrote one on Saint Thomas, he wrote one on Saint Francis, Ignatius Press publishes them in a single volume, I think. But he speaks of Francis, the acrobat, right.

24:05And Francis says, sort of standing on his head. And in that posture, he says, he sees the earth not on its solid foundations, but suspended from the divine power, right. He speaks of a Ceci, you know, this very, you've been there, right? Yeah. It's a very formidable kind of city that edifices are stone and Honduras, right. They're well anchored in the earth. But if you look at the upside down, looks like they're hanging from heaven, you know. So he suggests that that's kind of the Franciscan vision, that this vision of minority, of levity, you could even say, right, of, you know, seeing the world almost humorously because of its frailty and the fact that in a very real sense, we're suspended in being, you know, by the divine power and from the divine power and at the divine will. And that's a completely different way of looking at the world that we usually do.

25:06Well, I think going back to St Joseph now, he had a great devotion to the whole name of Jesus, didn't he? And it wasn't true. That was enough to send him into levity. Yeah. And that makes, you know, choir and chapel very hard to do. Yeah, that's right. Because you're going to hear the name of Jesus a lot here. It's the congregation's gathering for their, you know, the letters of the hours and their prayer time. You're going to hear the name of Jesus and the poor guy is going to be floating. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So he had, obviously, as is always the case with the saints, he had a very deep love of our lady and of course, firstly, our Lord. And the mention of either could send him into ecstasy and into levitation. Also the other saints, Christmas carols, there were all kinds of things that caused him to rise in ecstasy. So once again, a very humble soul, very beautiful, deeply devout.

26:09But once again, in a certain sense, not fitted for this world, you know, because even in religious life, you know, that's going to inspire wonder and awe in some people and suspicion and jealousy in others. Yeah. And distraction. I mean, that's, you know, if you're trying to pray and someone keeps floating up, you know, it's kind of hard to focus on the person. The irony is that, you know, God's kind of, as you've mentioned, taking the physical, the bodily faculties and possessing them. But that's not happening to everybody else around them. And they're getting very distracted in their prayer meditations they watch. But what do you think the lesson is? Why does the Lord do that extraordinarily, extraordinarily rare and unique thing? What is he trying to teach us? I mean, obviously he does it for people like Joseph and Theresa Vavala, a lot of love for them. But what is it for all of us who aren't taken up? I think actually it's one of those, it's probably more one of those graces that St. Thomas

27:15talks about. The grace is freely given, which are actually for others. And this is the significance of St. Theresa of Avila, you know, talking about her embarrassment at this experience is that it actually was a source of displeasure for her precisely because everyone could see her in that state. And the humility of the saints, you know, bristles at that sort of thing, right? They don't want to be seen to be holy. And so it really is a demonstration, a kind of visual aid, if you will, that God makes of the saints. And that goes back to what you were saying about St. Paul as spectacle, right? It's not oh marvelous here I go again, right? In the life of the saints, that's got to feel very uncomfortable. And you know, many of the saints puzzle over these gifts, right?

28:16But they recognize that they are being made as spectacle of in order to demonstrate that about divine power, also the divine love because that, you know, the very act of elevation, interestingly enough, levity up until the 19th century was considered to be the opposite of gravity, an opposite power. So it was that people thought of it as a pull. And that's really what's happening. God is drawing them towards Himself. And he's manifesting it before the eyes of the crowd. And in so doing sort of demonstrates that that's what he desires for everyone is that kind of levity, right? To be drawn up, to be lifted up as Jesus says, you know, when I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. And in a certain sense, this is a demonstration of that gospel principle. In the last minute, what was it? How was it?

29:17What's the lesson that you take away? Well, St. Joseph of Cupertino is invoked by the seminarians I teach at the seminary at every exam because he received infuse knowledge at just the right time. So he, in his pre-ordination examination, he was asked the one question he knew the answer to, which he had been given apparently by infuse knowledge. So very simple. And in the life of an intellectual, somebody who's teaching theology, St. Joseph, Cupertino, even though he's a levitator, keeps his grounded, right? He keeps, he reminds us that that that minority is the real root of sanctity that, you know, not taking yourself too seriously is the way in which we fly to God, not by, you know, considering ourselves grave and important and holy. That is such a beautiful point for all of us to reflect on. I love the image of levity and the Lord wanting to take us up and Mary's magnificent God

30:22raises up the lowly. And the idea that, you know, I like the angels fly because they don't take themselves seriously. And, you know, the world could use more levity. Yes, it certainly could. The world we all could use more levity. And I, what a beautiful story that St. Joseph Cupertino gives us. What a great saint to pray to, you know, he kind of gets neglected. He was humble and, you know, I think underestimated during his lifetime by many people and even today, even in the life of the church, God has raised him up high. So what a great friend for all of us to pray to and ask him to intercede to help us not take ourselves so seriously to be light of heart and joyful of heart, right? That's what God wants for all of us. Well, thanks Sean so much for being with us and thanks to everybody who supports us in the mission circle, those little gifts, all those little things make a big difference. And so everybody who's in our mission circle, you allow us to have this ministry work grateful for you.

31:23We pray for you every day and we hope that the Lord may bless and keep you. Thanks for joining us. Take care. You can watch these interviews and video format by visiting form.org. Formed as an online Catholic streaming service created by the Augustan Institute and Ignatius Press with award-winning studies and parish programs, inspiring audio content, movies, e-books, and family-friendly kids programming. To support the mission of the Augustan Institute, please visit missioncircle.org.