Saint Joseph’s father died when Joseph was a child, and his mother had little affection for him, for he was sickly, clumsy, and always appeared preoccupied. At the age of seventeen he asked to be admitted by the Conventuals, but they found him too dull-witted. The Capuchins then received him, but dismissed him after eight months as unfitted. His mother’s brother, a
Conventual, then gave him employment in the friary as
a servant, and he was given the tertiary habit. St.
Joseph now performed the lowliest services so well
and showed such humility and piety that he was
admitted as a member of the Order. Though he had
great difficulties with studies, he was ordained and
said his first Mass with ecstatic fervor… He continued
to perform the humblest duties, but his life was
marked henceforth by ecstasies and especially
levitations…So numerous were these phenomena that
for thirty-five years he was not allowed to say Mass in
public or attend public functions…He was subjected to
harsh examinations, one by Pope Urban VIII himself,
at whose sight Joseph promptly went into an ecstasy. To remove him from the public eye he was sent to a friary at Assisi, and here for a number of years he suffered severe trials. Crowds flocked to him seeking help and counsel in the confessional, and many conversions took place. Yet Joseph continued to be misunderstood and had to spend the last years of his life practically as a prisoner, first with the Capuchins, then with the Conventuals, though the miraculous manifestations continued until his death.

A Saint a Day, pgs. 267-268