Giuseppe Maria Desa #2

Giuseppe Maria Desa. Teal panel
A.K.A. Saint Joseph of Cupertino 17 June 1603 – 18 September 1663 was a friar who is honored as a Christian mystic and saint. The Catholic religion calls him the patron saint of flight. He was said to have been remarkably unclever, but prone to miraculous levitation and intense ecstatic visions that left him gaping.
He showed an ability to speak with birds. If he were walking with you to church and he began to think of God he would float away from you and on to church. If while in church singing praise to God he might think deeply of his love for God he might float past you up to the cross near the rafters some 20 feet off the ground. There it would appear he is kneeling before the cross in some state of intense ecstatic vision.
Even royalty came to visit the church to see the floating monk. Not to be upstaged preachers would demand of him Giuseppe come down from there! He would seem to be coming out of a dream as he slowly floated back to earth. His floating seemed uncontrollable when thinking of God.
We are told Giuseppe could speak to animals and favored the company of birds. Some even preceded his visits to friends by days. Some birds attended a religious station to sing with nuns at his discretion. He would place a bird consider its point of view and compelled one to stay and sing with the ladies. When they made the bird mad it left. They begged Giuseppe to compel the bird to return he was able to do so.
His flying and ecstatic events were considered a distraction and when the hunt for witches was prevalent poor Giuseppe was in effect caged. He was sent to an area where he could be hidden and his flying was contained.