Feast of Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Confessor

Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Confessor

Saint Joseph of Cupertino, a Franciscan friar in Italy, was born June 17, 1603. The feast of this glorious Son of the Seraph of Assisi was made universal throughout the Church by a Pope of the same Order, Pope Clement XIV. St. Joseph is famous for his evangelical simplicity and for his ecstasies. The whole of the Mass assigned to him brings out the mystical side of his sanctity when he was seen my many levitating above the altar. He worked many miracles, and died a happy death at Orsino on September 18, 1663, as he himself had predicted.

September 18 –  Feast of Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Confessor

Double / White Vestments

Missa “Diléctio Dei”

INTROIT:

The love of God is honorable wisdom: and they to whom she shall show herself, love her by the sight, and by the knowledge of her great works.

 Psalm: 83: 2

How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 The love of God…

INTROIT: Ecclus. 1: 14, 15

Diléctio Dei honorábilis sapiéntia: quibus autem apparúerit in visu, dílligunt eam in visióne, et in agnitióne magnálium suórum.

Psalm: 83: 2

Quam dilécta tabernácula tua, Dómine virtútum! concupíscit, et déficit ánima mea in átrla Dómini.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancti sicut erat in principio et nunc, et semper, et saecula saeculorum. Amen.

 Diléctio Dei …

COLLECT

O God, Who didst purpose to draw all things unto Thy Son when He was lifted up from the earth, mercifully grant that we, by the merits and example of Thy seraphic confessor, Joseph, being lifted above all earthly desires, may be worthy to come unto Him. Who with Thee livest and reignest, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, Forever and ever.

EPISTLE: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8

Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians

Brethren: If I speak with tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am becoming as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy,- and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,. and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not; dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; is not ambitious; seeketh not her own; is not provoked to anger; thinketh no evil; rejoíceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never falleth away: whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed.

GRADUAL: Psalm 20: 4- 5

O Lord, Thou hast prevented him with blessings of sweetness: Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones. He asked life of Thee, and Thou hast given him length of days forever, and for ages of ages.

ALLELUIA : Ecclus. 11: 13

Alleluia, alleluia. The eye of God hath looked upon him for good, and hath lifted him up from his low estate, and hath exalted his head. Alleluia.

GOSPEL: Matthew 22: 1-14

The continuation of the holy Gospel according to Matthew

At that time, Jesus spoke to the chief priests and the Pharisees in parables, saying: “The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son and he sent his servants, to call them that were invited to the marriage, and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell them that were invited: Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come ye to the marriage. But they neglected and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise and the rest laid their hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king heard of it, he was angry and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. Then he saith to his servants: The marriage indeed is ready, but they that were invited were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage. And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment: and he saith to him: Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding garment? but he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

OFFERTORY:    Psalm 34: 13

But as for me, when they were troublesome to me, I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer shall be turned into my bosom.

SECRET

We offer Thee sacrifices of praise, O Lord, in commemoration of Thy saints, by whom we trust to be delivered both from present and from future evils. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God…

PREFACE   Common Preface

It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God: through Christ our Lord. Through Whom the Angels praise Thy Majesty, the Dominations worship it, the Powers stand in awe. The Heavens and the Heavenly hosts together with the blessed Seraphim in triumphant chorus unite to celebrate it. Together with them we entreat Thee, that Thou mayest bid our voices also to be admitted, while we say in lowly praise:

SANCTUS, SANCTUS, SANCTUS Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria Tua. Hosanna in excelsis. + Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis.

COMMUNION:   Psalm 68: 30-31

I am poor and sorrowful: Thy salvation, O God, hath set me up. I will praise the name of God with a canticle: and I will magnify Him with praise.

POSTCOMMUNION

Refreshed with celestial food and drink, O our God, we humbly beseech Thee that we may be defended by the prayers of the saint whose feast we commemorate, and of whom we have received these blessings. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God For ever and ever. R. Amen.

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Roman Breviary – Matins – Lesson iv 

Joseph was born of godly parents at Copertino, a small village of the diocese of Nardo, between Brindisi and Otranto, in the year of Redemption 1603.  The love of God came to him early, and he passed his childhood and youth in great guilelessness and harmlessness.  After recovering by the help of the Virgin Mother of God from a long and painful sickness which he bore very quietly, he gave himself altogether to godliness and self-improvement.  God called him inwardly to higher things, and to give himself more utterly to his service, he determined in himself to join the Seraphic Order.  After divers failures and changes, he obtained his wish among the Friars of the convent of La Grotella.  He went first as a lay brother, on account of his ignorance of letters, but God was pleased to allow him afterwards to be taken among the choir-brethren.  After taking his solemn vows he was ordained Priest, and then set before him to aim at a more perfect life.  To this end (as far as in him lay) he thrust from him all earthly affections and all carnal things, even to such as seem almost needful for life.  He tormented his body with haircloth, scourging, spiked chains, and every kind of hardship and affliction.  He fed his spirit sweetly upon the constant exercise of holy prayer, and gazing upon the highest matters.  And so it came to pass that the love of God, which had been enkindled in his heart from his earliest years, burnt forth day by day more strangely and openly.

Lesson v

The chief outcome of this love of God was the strong and marvelous trances where into he oftentimes fell.  It was, nevertheless, strange to observe that after he had entirely lost his senses he could be called out the trance by the mere order of his superiors.  To be utterly obedient was one of his chief aims, and he was used to say that those who ruled him could lead him about like a blind man, and that it was better to die than not to obey.  He so imitated the poverty of the Seraphic Patriarch, that when he was at the point of death, when the Friars use to dispose of anything they have, he was able to tell his Superior that he had absolutely nothing.  Thus bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, the life also of Jesus was made manifest in his body.  When he saw that certain persons had committed a foul sin of uncleanness, there came from him a strong savor, a proof of that snowy and glorious purity which, in spite of the most hideous temptations whereby the unclean spirit wrestled long to darken it, he kept undefiled, partly by an iron bridling of his senses, partly by the stern punishments he inflicted upon his own body, and partly by the extraordinary protection of the pure Virgin Mary, whom he was used to call his own Mother, whom he honoured and worshiped as his most tender Mother in his very heart of hearts, and whom he was eager that all men should honor, because, as he said, if we have her protection, every good thing cometh with it.