Observations placeholder
Joseph of Cupertino – And his death, ‘Oh, what chants, what sounds of Paradise’
Identifier
023477
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
This is from a chronicle of the famous saint, Joseph of Cupertino, and is an account of his death. There are two sources for the information Dingwall's Some Human Oddities (Home and Von Thal, 1947), which in turn was taken from, among other sources, Bernino's Vita del P. Fra Giuseppe da Copertino ( 1753). So it is not ideal as a source having passed through a number of ‘hands’, however, it has interest.
In August, 1663, Joseph was seized by a fever and grew steadily worse. On l7th September, or the day before he died, he received the Viaticum and said he heard the sound of a bell which was summoning him to God. Passing into the ecstatic state he rose from his death bed and flew from his cell as far as the steps of his little chapel. “The Ass is beginning to ascend the mountain," he said, and, having received -supreme Unction, he called out in a loud clear voice, which hardly corresponded with his extreme weakness, ”Oh, what chants, what sounds of Paradise."