The Admiral Was Amazed, His Wife Fainted Away, And All The
Onlookers Became Piously Terrified."
And if this does not suffice to win credence, the following will
assuredly do so:
"And since it was God's wish to render him marvellous even in the sight
of men of the highest sphere, He ordained that Joseph, having arrived in
Rome, should be conducted one day by the Father-General (of the
Franciscan Order) to kiss the feet of the High Pontiff, Urban the
Eighth; in which act, while contemplating Jesus Christ in the person of
His Vicar, he was ecstatically raised in air, and thus remained till
called back by the General, to whom His Holiness, highly astonished,
turned and said that 'if Joseph were to die during his pontificate, he
himself would bear witness to this successo.'"
But his most remarkable flights took place at Fossombrone, where once
"detaching himself in swiftest manner from the altar with a cry like
thunder, he went, like lightning, gyrating hither and thither about the
chapel, and with such an impetus that he made all the cells of the
dormitory tremble, so that the monks, issuing thence in consternation,
cried, 'An earthquake! An earthquake!'" Here, too, he cast a young sheep
into the air, and took flight after it to the height of the trees, where
he "remained in kneeling posture, ecstatic and with extended arms, for
more than two hours, to the extraordinary marvel of the clergy who
witnessed this." This would seem to have been his outdoor record - two
hours without descent to earth.
Sometimes, furthermore, he took a passenger, if such a term can properly
be applied.
So once, while the monks were at prayers, he was observed to rise up and
run swiftly towards the Confessor of the convent, and "seizing him by
the hand, he raised him from the ground by supernatural force, and with
jubilant rapture drew him along, turning him round and round in a
violento ballo; the Confessor moved by Joseph, and Joseph by God."
And what happened at Assisi is still more noteworthy, for here
was a gentleman, a suffering invalid, whom Joseph "snatched by the hair,
and, uttering his customary cry of 'oh!' raised himself from the earth,
while he drew the other after him by his hair, carrying him in this
fashion for a short while through the air, to the intensest admiration
of the spectators." The patient, whose name was Chevalier Baldassarre,
discovered, on touching earth again, that he had been cured by this
flight of a severe nervous malady which had hitherto afflicted him. . . .
Searching in the biography for some other interesting traits of Saint
Joseph of Copertino, I find, in marked contrast to his heaven-soaring
virtues, a humility of the profoundest kind. Even as a full-grown man he
retained the exhilarating, childlike nature of the pure in heart. "La
Mamma mia" - thus he would speak, in playful-saintly fashion, of the
Mother of God - "la Mamma mia is capricious.
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