Saint Joseph of Copertino - The Flying Saint

Saint Joseph of Copertino (San Giuseppe da Copertino) was born on 17 June 1603 in Copertino, a village near Lecce (Apulia, Italy). He died on 18 September 1663 in Osimo (Ancona, Italy).

His life was distinguished by supernatural and spectacular ecstatic states and healing experiences. His miracles draw such crowds and caused so much admiration and also social disturbance that his embarrassed superiors had to send him away from convent to convent.

As a result of his popularity, he was also brought before the Inquisition and accused of behaving like a false Messiah, yet the charge was not proven. He was ultimately ordered to remain confined in his room for thirty-five years. From 1639 to 1653 Joseph was not allowed to attend public places and lived in his cell in the convent of Assisi, where a small private chapel was prepared for him.

During a devotional pilgrimage to Assisi in 1980 a friar accompanied me to a private area of the convent were Saint Joseph’s cell is still preserved. This was a most significant experience on my path, which I described in full details in my early works.[1]

Perhaps his most famous enterprises were his repeated levitations, when his body would fly and remain suspended in the air. More than seventy documented public cases of levitation were recorded only in his early years and this earned him the nickname “the Flying Friar”.

Spectacular instances involved flying to religious images placed in high areas of the church or lifting a Calvary Cross thirty-six feet high, which several workers had failed to move, “as if it were straw” and install it high above the altar. His life was a long succession of visions and miracles. Whatever had any reference to God, the Virgin or the sacred would cause him to enter into an ecstatic state of consciousness: the sound of a bell, the mention of the name or the thought of God or the Madonna or of a saint, a holy picture, the choir, would put Joseph into an ecstatic state.

“Neither dragging him about, buffeting, piercing with needles, nor even burning his flesh with candles would have any effect on him – only the voice of his superior would make him obey”.

His feast is celebrated on 18 September. He is the patron of students, aviators and air passengers.

The story of this saint is depicted in the movie The Reluctant Saint (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rQZC7pGT-4) and some references are also featured in More Than A Miracle (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hq0V2eriVs)