An Irishman's Diary

FOR READERS of a certain age, Ruairí Quinn’s fears about the Leaving Cert becoming too predictable may have awakened memories of a once-popular learning aid: the prayer to St Joseph of Cupertino.

I don’t recall it featuring in my own schooling (courtesy of the Patrician Brothers), even though come exam-time back then, most of us would have been desperate enough to try anything. It’s possible that a previous Minister for Education had already cracked down on the racket. But I’m told by former exam-sitters who know that, in its heyday, praying to St Joseph was considered a quite respectable strategy.

Born in 1603 in the Italian deep south, he was a famously poor student himself. In today’s terms, he would probably be said to have had learning difficulties. At any rate, like many academic strugglers before and since, he reflected on difficult problems by staring into space. What set him apart is that unlike most people who stare into space, he found answers there.

One of his studying techniques was exactly the sort of thing that Minister Quinn worries about. Unable to absorb an entire text during his theological studies, he would instead concentrate on a small section of it and pray that this would come up in the exam. It’s said to have worked.

I’m reminded of a small incident some years ago when I was the captain of a pub quiz team. It was an oral quiz, with some rounds in which no conferring was allowed. And being neophytes at this sort of thing, my team-mates were nervous about the prospect of being made to look stupid by the individual questions. So they asked the most experienced quiz person among them (me) for a crash course in general knowledge.

This should have been a hopeless task. But it just so happened that – I’m not proud to admit this now – I had at that time a sizeable collection of quiz books, all more or less memorised. Moreover, in an earlier round of the quiz, I had noticed that the question-master was using one of these books as a source. So, more to calm the team’s nerves than anything else, I copied the first few pages and suggested they learn these off.

Well, the night of the quiz came and – lo! – not only were the individual-round questions all taken from the book, they were taken from the very pages I had copied. My team-mates reeled the answers off like geniuses and for a short while afterwards, they thought I was a miracle-worker. Of course I wasn’t a miracle-worker. I was only an anorak.

AS FOR Joseph of Cupertino, an ability to pass exams mysteriously was not his only – or indeed main – claim to notoriety. He was also known for levitating, involuntarily, during religious ecstasies. Which you might think would have guaranteed him reverence in 17th-century Italy. But on the contrary, it was the cause of much embarrassment, not least to himself.

Following the first reported incident, during a procession in honour of St Francis in 1630, he was so alarmed that, upon landing, he fled to his mother’s house and hid. After that, the flights became so frequent – triggered usually by hymns or the utterance of holy names – that his religious superiors banned him from community activities as a distraction to others.

The most notorious of his flights is said to have occurred during an audience with Pope Urban VIII. Attempting to kiss the pontiff’s feet, he instead floated into the air, causing him to be grounded – literally – by the head of the Franciscan order.

Because of his various talents, Joseph became the patron saint of aviators, astronauts, nervous aeroplane passengers, people with learning difficulties, and students generally. I imagine transcendental meditators and yogic fliers might consider him a role model too. And waning as his influence may be, there must be people in high places today (not including airline pilots, I hope) who believe they owe their positions to his intervention.

The popularity of his exam-anticipation techniques is not now of an extent to worry the Minister for Education. But the saint’s other alleged powers may have more appeal to modern school-goers. Thus for a generation reared both on predictable exams and Harry Potter, involuntary levitation would now probably be considered the more exciting of his talents.

Sure enough, there has been a revival of popular interest. Spotting his superhero potential, Speakeasy Comics drew on Joseph's story for a 2007 book, The Flying Friar.Described as " Smallvillemeets The Name of the Rose", its obvious influences also included Superman. But the 17th-century setting and the saint's Catholicism are both preserved. Hence his arch-enemy: a man called "Lux Luther" who – there are no marks for guessing – is a descendant of the more famous Martin.