Osimo

One of the only trips I have actually taken in the last two months, besides studying in Assisi, was a trip to the east coast to the towns of Osimo and Loreto.  I was planning on going to a different town, but I heard about these two towns, and at the last minute, at the train station, a buddy and I had to use this as a backup plan, even though it meant about 8 hours of traveling in trains and various buses, but that made it a good pilgrimage experience.

I was attracted to Osimo because it holds the relics of St. Joseph of Cupertino, who not only bears my name, but is also the patron of students and specifically of test-takers, and, interestingly, of aviation and astronauts.  Born in the early 1600's, St. Joseph is known as "The flying saint" because without knowing it, he would often levitate in public, to the point where they had to give him his own chapel so that he would not disturb masses, because he would literally levitate for over an hour.

He was also very slow witted, which made it nearly impossible to join the Franciscans, and especially to become a priest.  At first they only let him take care of the horses.  The only way he was actually admitted to ordination was that his examiner asked him about a passage of Scripture, and it happened to be the only passage that Joseph could explain and expound on.  Besides his great ecstasies, as with all saints, he had a great period of spiritual dryness, and he had to endure great mockery and rejection because of his slow nature.