Saint Joseph of Cupertino

Joseph of Cupertino was not the guy anyone expected to become a saint. He was forgetful, clumsy, and struggled so badly in school that he couldn't get accepted into religious life the first time he tried. Or the second time. A Franciscan friary finally took him on as a servant, and he worked his way up from there.

Here's the thing about Joseph: he had a habit of levitating. Not metaphorically. The man would be praying or attending Mass and suddenly just... rise off the ground. It happened so often, in front of so many witnesses, that Church authorities eventually restricted him from celebrating public Mass and moved him from friary to friary to avoid the chaos. He reportedly levitated over 70 times throughout his life, witnessed by everyone from fellow friars to Pope Urban VIII.

Beyond the extraordinary stuff, Joseph spent most of his life in obscurity, doing humble work and enduring long stretches of spiritual dryness and interior suffering. He wasn't celebrated during his lifetime so much as he was managed. People didn't quite know what to do with him.

What's actually compelling about Joseph isn't the levitating. It's the picture of someone who seemed to fail at almost everything the world values, and who still became deeply united with God. He's the patron of students taking exams, which feels right. He struggled to learn, barely passed his ordination exam, and yet he's remembered centuries later. There's something genuinely hopeful in that.