Subj : September 18th - St. Joseph of Cupertino To : All From : rich Date : Tue Sep 17 2019 09:04:05 From: rich September 18th - St. Joseph of Cupertino (1603 =E2=80=93 1663) When Joseph Desa was born in southern Italy in 1603, his parents did not rejoice. The father, a carpenter deep in debt, died early. His mother found young Joseph an unpleasant burden. Perhaps it was for want of parental affection that her son developed a preoccupied manner. His young companions called him =E2=80=9CBoccaperta,=E2=80=9D =E2= =80=9Cthe gaper.=E2=80=9D He also had a strong temper at first. Still, he was a reverent child. Joseph proved a difficult person to place. Apprenticed to a shoemaker, he showed no talent for cobbling. Therefore, at 17, he himself asked to join the Conventual Franciscans. They turned him down. The Capuchin Franciscans did accept him as a lay-brother candidate, but he broke so many dishes that they soon told him he'd better leave. Finally, Signora Desa talked her brother, himself a Conventual Franciscan, into hiring her boy as a servant. They accepted him on this basis. From then on, however, young Joe's life began to change. He really applied himself to becoming a better person =E2=80=93 gentler, calmer, more prayerful. It even came to the point that the Conventuals had him enter the order and study for the priesthood. The reason for his superiors' changed views was that Joseph had displayed marvelous gi= fts of mystical prayer. Chief of these was the gift of ecstasy. In his prayer he was often so swept up into union with God that he lost all sense of time and space. His ecstasies were frequently connected with the still rarer gift of =E2=80=9Clevitation=E2=80=9D: being lifted up into the air when in ecstatic= prayer. For example, when Joseph was stationed at the monastery at Grottella, it would take little to send him into rapture: the sight of a religious statue or the mention of anything that reminded him of God. Once, when he was living at their monastery at Orsini, his fellow Franciscans in chapel saw him fly up seven or eight feet into the air, kiss a statue tenderly and float off to his own cell. Sometimes when he started flying he would even pick up a fellow friar and lift him up beside him in the air, much to the consternation of the liftee. Only the command of his superior could bring Friar Joseph down for a soft landing. When he came to, of course, he had no knowledge of what had been going on. What were the Franciscans going to do with this unique friar? The solution they arrived at was to keep him out of sight, so that he wouldn't continue to disturb public order. For thirty-five years, therefore, he was forbidden to attend the community Mass and prayers, obliged to say his own Mass and prayers in a private chapel. From 1653 to 1657, church authorities even took him away from his fellow Conventuals and sent him, now to one, now to another remote monastery of the Capuchin Franciscans. When devoted followers located one of his =E2=80=9Cprisons,=E2=80=9D the authorities spirited him off to another. In 1657 he was finally allowed to return to the Conventual monastery of Osimo. There he died in 1663. Meanwhile, separation from almost everybody had caused him no great grief. It merely meant that his only companion was God. And that was what God wanted. You might say, therefore, that St. Joseph worried his fellow Franciscans because he was a square peg and wouldn't fit in the usu= al round hole. What they overlooked is there is no need for every peg to be round. The square pegs that God sometimes makes are also beautiful in His eyes. So should they be in ours. =E2=80=93Father Robert Saint Quote: . Let us work in such a way that the whole Church, all Christian people, led by their bishops and clergy, truly feel the apostolic duty that is incumbent upon them to promote the propagation of the faith with every means. Let us work in such a way that the missionaries, the most direct instruments for the conversion of souls, are saints, and non-Christians will not be slow to be converted. --Blessed Paolo Manna Bible Quote: And if thy hand, or thy foot, scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire. <><><><> I knelt to pray but not for long, I had too much to do. I had to hurry and get to work For bills would soon be due. So I knelt and said a hurried prayer, And jumped up off my knees. My Christian duty was now done My soul could rest at ease..... All day long I had no time To spread a word of cheer No time to speak of Christ to friends, They ' d laugh at me I ' d fear. No time, no time, too much to do, That was my constant cry, No time to give to souls in need But at last the time, the time to die I went before the Lord, I came, I stood with downcast eyes. For in his hands God! Held a book; It was the book of life. God looked into his book and said ' Your name I cannot find I once was going! To write it down... But never found the time ' --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .