And How Useful This Gift Became In Old Age Was Seen When, Being Almost Incapable Of Moving His Legs, And

With body half paralysed, he was nevertheless enabled to accompany a procession for the length of two miles on foot,

Walking, to the stupefaction of thousands of spectators, at about a cubit's height above the street, on air; after the fashion of those Hindu gods whose feet - so the pagans fable - are too pure to touch mortal earth.

His love of poverty, moreover, was so intense that even after his death a picture of him, which his relatives had tried to attach to the wall in loving remembrance, repeatedly fell down again, although nailed very securely; nor did it remain fixed until they realized that its costly gilt frame was objectionable to the saint in heaven, and accordingly removed it. No wonder the infant Jesus was pleased to descend from the breast of Mary and take rest for several hours in the arms of Saint Giangiuseppe, who, on being disturbed by some priestly visitor, exclaimed, "O how I have enjoyed holding the Holy Babe in my arms!" This is an old and favourite motif; it occurs, for example, in the Fioretti of Saint Francis; there are precedents, in fact, for all these divine favours.

But his distinguishing feature, his "dominating gift," was that of prophecy, especially in foretelling the deaths of children, "which he almost always accompanied with jocular words (scherzi) on his lips." He would enter a house and genially remark: "O, what an odour of Paradise "; sooner or later one or more of the children of the family would perish. To a boy of twelve he said, "Be good, Natale, for the angels are coming to take you." These playful words seem to have weighed considerably on the boy's mind and, sure enough, after a few years he died. But even more charming - piu grazioso, the biographer calls it - was the incident when he once asked a father whether he would give his son to Saint Pasquale. The fond parent agreed, thinking that the words referred to the boy's future career in the Church. But the saint meant something quite different - he meant a career in heaven! And in less than a month the child died. To a little girl who was crying in the street he said: "I don't want to hear you any more. Go and sing in Paradise." And meeting her a short time after, he said, "What, are you still here?" In a few days she was dead.

The biography gives many instances of this pretty gift which would hardly have contributed to the saint's popularity in England or any other country save this, where - although the surviving youngsters are described as "struck with terror at the mere name of the Servant of God" - the parents were naturally glad to have one or two angels in the family, to act as avvocati (pleaders) for those that remained on earth.

And the mention of the legal profession brings me to one really instructive miracle.

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