Saint Joseph of Leonessa

His name was Eufranio Desideri, the son of a wool merchant, and he was born in Leonessa in 1556. He joined the Capuchins in Assisi at sixteen and was ordained a priest in 1580. So far, a life like many others. Then, in 1587, he asked Pope Sixtus V for permission to go to Constantinople, and got it. Not to be a missionary in the abstract: to assist the Christians held prisoner there. He went, and he didn’t stop there — he tried preaching among the Turks, and even went as far as trying to convert Sultan Murad III in person. He was arrested. The torture they gave him is the kind that’s hard to read about: he hung for three days from a large beam, with iron hooks driven through his hands and feet, and a fire lit beneath him. He survived. The sultan, according to the story, was so struck by him that he had him freed. Back in Italy, he worked as a preacher for the rest of his life, traveling through the villages of Abruzzo and Umbria and setting up works of charity wherever they were needed. He fell ill with a tumor; his fellow friars even tried operating on him to save him. He died in Amatrice in 1612 and was buried there, but after the earthquake of 1639 the people of his hometown went to take back his remains and brought them to Leonessa, where they still rest. In 1952 Pius XII proclaimed him patron of the missions in Turkey. If your name is Joseph, your day is March 19, but today belongs to this particular Joseph. A man who spent three days hanging from a beam and then went back to being a country parish priest.