Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Confessor
S. Iosephi a Cupertino Confessoris
Saint Joseph of Cupertino, a poor and simple Franciscan friar, was so rapt in the love of God that he was often lifted from the earth in ecstasy, and is honoured as a wonder of contemplative prayer.
Saint Joseph was born in 1603 at Cupertino, a small town in the kingdom of Naples, in Italy, the child of poor parents. He was a boy of slow wit and little learning, often distracted and given to long fits of abstraction, so that he found study and the ordinary tasks of life exceedingly hard. Yet in his simplicity there was a deep and tender love of God, and from his earliest years he was drawn to prayer and to the things of heaven.
The friar of ecstasies
After being refused by others on account of his apparent unfitness, Saint Joseph was at length received among the Conventual Franciscans, first as a lay brother and afterward, though his learning was very slight, admitted to the priesthood. As a friar and priest he gave himself wholly to prayer, penance, and obedience, embracing poverty and humiliation with joy. So entirely was his soul absorbed in God that the least thing — a holy word, the name of Jesus or of our Lady, the beauty of creation — would draw him into ecstasy; and on very many occasions, as a great number of witnesses attested, he was seen to be raised bodily from the ground and held aloft while wrapt in prayer.
These wonders, far from lifting him up in his own eyes, were to him a source of confusion and of suffering, and he sought to hide them and to be accounted as nothing. For long years, by the disposition of his superiors and of authority in the Church, he lived in retirement and seclusion, removed from the gaze of the crowds whom these marvels drew; and he bore this hidden life with perfect humility and obedience, esteeming himself the least of men. In all things he showed that true holiness lies not in wonders but in charity, humility, and the surrender of the will to God.
His holy death
Saint Joseph passed his last years in prayer and penance, longing to be dissolved and to be with Christ. He died on the eighteenth of September, 1663, and was afterward canonised. On account of the manner of his life he is honoured as a patron of those who must take examinations and of students, and, in later times, of those who travel by air.
The collect of his feast recalls that God so drew all things unto his Son lifted up from the earth, and prays that by the merits and example of the seraphic Saint Joseph we may be raised above all earthly desires and come to him. His feast is kept on the eighteenth of September.
The Collect
O God, who didst decree that thine Only-begotten Son, lifted up from the earth, should draw all things unto himself: mercifully grant that, by the merits and example of thy seraphic confessor Joseph, we may be raised above all earthly desires, and be found worthy to come unto him.
Deus, qui Unigénitum tuum, exaltátum a terra, ómnia ad se tráhere disposuísti: concéde propítius; ut, sancti Ioséphi Confessóris tui méritis et exémplo, supra terræ desidéria eleváti, ad eum perveníre mereámur.
Patronage
He is venerated as a wonder of contemplative prayer and is invoked as a patron of students and of those facing examinations, and of air travellers and aviators.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar this feast is no longer kept on the universal calendar, though it is retained in the Franciscan family and observed in some places.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint Joseph of Cupertino?
His feast is kept on 18 September in the calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal, as a Third Class feast. In the modern universal calendar it is no longer observed, though it is retained in the Franciscan Order and kept in some places.
Who was Saint Joseph of Cupertino?
He was a seventeenth-century Italian Franciscan friar of poor and humble origin, of very little learning, who was so absorbed in the love of God that he was frequently rapt in ecstasy and, as many witnesses attested, raised bodily from the ground in prayer. He died in 1663 and was later canonised.
Why is he the patron of students and examinations?
Saint Joseph found study and learning extremely difficult, and according to his life was admitted to the priesthood only after being examined, by God’s providence, on the very matters he had been able to prepare. For this reason the faithful invoke him as a patron of students and of those who must take examinations.
See where this feast falls in the Church’s year on the liturgical calendar, or find a Traditional Latin Mass near you.
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