A Review of “Joseph of Copertino” by Paolo Agelli

 

This biography recounts the incredible life of an awe-inspiring saint named Joseph of Copertino. Joseph was born in Copertino, Italy in 1603 to a mother and father who worked diligently towards the religious education of their son. His mother was such a pious woman that she, especially, raised Joseph to live for God. From a young age, then, “his behavior was never marked by the usual defects of boyhood.”¹

As he got older, Joseph continually strove to cultivate his spiritual life and to grow in virtue. He took great lengths to mortify his flesh through ascetism. Joseph would often walk around barefoot, wear the same worn-out and uncomfortable clothing, he would fast continuously and eat only herbs, and would sleep only briefly on a very hard bed made up of boards. Though he was a pious man who actively worked towards growing in righteousness, others often viewed him as inept, largely because Joseph was unable to read and struggled academically. “We read about Joseph’s youth, when, partly as the result of a period of childhood illness, he struggled with incompetence in many of his endeavors and was mocked for the reveries into which he sometimes slipped.”²

At the age of seventeen, Joseph desired to enter the Franciscan Order. Though he had both a paternal and maternal uncle in the Franciscan Order, which should have assured his acceptance, they turned Joseph’s application down. His uncles knew that Joseph would not be fit for the priesthood because of his lack of literacy. Joseph, however, did not lose hope. He instead presented himself to the Provincial Head of the Capuchins and was speedily accepted as a Lay Brother. Though Joseph led a saintly life there for nine months, it was precisely his saintliness that rendered him incapable of serving in that holy establishment. His ecstasies were frequent, and wherever God surprised him with rapture, Joseph became “bereft of feeling and conscience only of God.”³ This caused him to appear clumsy, inattentive, and reckless to his superiors, and after being told that he was not fit for either a monastery or for a spiritual life, he was dismissed.

Joseph felt inexpressible pain and confusion regarding his dismissal. However, through the intercession of his pious mother’s prayers and her ability to convince her brother, the Father-Superior of the Franciscan Order, Joseph was accepted to the Monastery. Despite Joseph’s inability to read and learn, he was ordained a priest in 1628 through a series of miracles.

Throughout his priestly life and ministry, Joseph continued to grow in holiness and reached the heights of spiritual perfection. St. Joseph truly fulfilled the reason for which St. Francis of Assisi started his order, which was to “call Christians to lives of radical simplicity and poverty.”⁴ It wasn’t long before Joseph’s holiness was recognized by all who came into contact with him, and word quickly spread about him far and wide. Joseph became known for his virtue, purity, miracles, levitations, healings, predictions, and his untiring love of God. Throughout his life, there were many “‘flights’ that Joseph would experience while apparently in a trance state, or in a state of religious ecstasy or rapture.”⁵ He would levitate while celebrating the Mass, and would often fly great distances towards altars or statues.

Joseph, through the power of God, would frequently heal people of their afflictions and predict future events with one hundred percent accuracy. Oftentimes people found themselves to be healed simply by touching a relic that had been his. In this book, “we read about the way in which Joseph gains a reputation for being a wonderworker and for sinking into ecstatic trances.”⁶ Joseph’s love and continuous affection towards God was never interrupted. During his ecstasies he would be so taken up into God that he would not feel or hear anything going on around him. Though his brothers would often try to shake him or even tried burning his skin, nothing roused Joseph to consciousness. Joseph only responded to the command of his Superior during his raptures in order to be obedient.

Joseph was truly an incredible saint, whose life radiated holiness. Regarding the Lord, Joseph said, “I serve him only for Himself. I seek Him. I desire Him, and I want nothing more. If for my sins I were to lose Him, and if it would become necessary to send me to hell, I would like to be in a place in hell separate from others, so as not to hear him being cursed or blasphemed, and in that separate place, with hell on top of me, I would still want to bless Him and praise Him.”⁷

I highly recommend reading this book about the awe-inspiring life of saint Joseph of Copertino. He is an incredible example of what it means to live a life of holiness and to truly and actively work towards virtue. This book will motivate readers to follow Joseph’s example, by encouraging them to pursue righteousness as radically as he did. Many readers may even desire to pray to St. Joseph for intercession after reading about this great saint.

 

Image: A Miracle of Saint Joseph of Cupertino by Placido Costanzi, 1750, https://www.wikiart.org/en/placido-costanzi/a-miracle-of-saint-joseph-of-cupertino

¹ Paolo Agelli, Joseph of Copertino, (North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2014), 1.

² Daniel Wise, “Alien Abductions, Flying Saints, and Parapsychology: Grappling with the 'Super Natural',” Religious Studies Review 43, no. 3 (2017), 238.

³ Agelli, Joseph of Copertino, 6.

⁴ John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through the Ages, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2014), 140.

⁵ Michael E. Tymn, “Early Investigations into the Mystery of Levitation,” Journal of Spirituality & Paranormal Studies 31, no. 4 (2008), 216.

⁶ Wise, “Alien Abductions, Flying Saints,” 239.

⁷ Agelli, Joseph of Copertino, 137.