5 Saints Who Totally Had Superpowers
God acts in mysterious ways. That truth is made particularly evident in the types of things he does with those who are especially close to him.
Here are a few saints who totally had superpowers:
1) St. Joseph of Cupertino: Flying
Called “the flying saint,” we’re not talking about a few stories claiming St. Joseph of Cupertino flew in private or just for a few people. We’re talking about him regularly flying in front of large groups of people.
Whether it was during Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, or just at the mention of the name of Jesus or a saint, Joseph would involuntarily go into ecstasy and start levitating. This apparently happened once during a public procession in front of the whole town, and once even during an audience for the pope.
His constant, uncontrollable levitating actually became a problem. His religious superiors deemed the phenomenon disruptive. At the end of his life, he was transferred to different monasteries and kept in cells by himself.
But he kept on levitating at the name of Jesus anyway…
2) Christina the Astonishing: Indestructibility
Though she is not an officially canonized saint in the Church, she was considered a saint in her own lifetime (12th and 13th centuries), and has some pretty interesting stories nonetheless, all of which display the fact that she was basically indestructible.
For starters, she appeared to die of a seizure in her early 20s. Her body was prepared for burial and a funeral was held, but in the middle of the funeral she got up, full of energy. She said she had had a supernatural experience of heaven, hell, and purgatory. She told her family and friends that the sole reason she had returned was to suffer for the relief of those in purgatory and for the conversion of sinners still on earth.
That’s when she started to do some pretty intense things.
First, she fasted and deprived herself of any bodily comforts pretty severely. But that wasn’t enough. She also would regularly throw herself into burning furnaces, but leave them without burns. In the dead of winter, she would go swimming in a nearby icy river, sometimes staying in the water for days or even weeks at a time. Sometimes, she would even allow herself to be sucked into a mill that was operating on the river, and would be whirled around by the mill wheel. She would also allow herself to be ravaged by dogs, or would go running through thorns. But through all of these things, she would always come away unscathed.
Despite all of these things, she lived to be 74 years old.
3) St. Catherine of Alexandria: Jedi Mind Trick
St. Catherine was a princess in Egypt in the 3rd century and received a good education. Though raised as a pagan, when she was a teenager she claimed that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her, told her that she had been wed to Christ in a mystical marriage, and she was converted to the Christian faith.
Soon after, she got a personal audience with Roman Emperor Maxentius and tried to convince him to stop persecuting Christians. The emperor brought out his best philosophers and rhetoricians to debate Catherine – but, amazingly, she won their debate. Several of her interlocutors were so impressed, they converted to Christianity.
Furious, the emperor had her imprisoned. But her persuasiveness just continued in prison. Among those she met in prison and those who visited, 200 people were converted by her evangelism. When she refused to stop converting people to the Christian faith despite being tortured, the emperor tried to persuade her to stop by asking her to marry him. She refused, and he sentenced her to death. But when she touched the the spiked breaking wheel that was going to be used to kill her, it shattered spontaneously. Finally, the emperor ordered her to be beheaded, which successfully ended her life.
4) St. Vincent Ferrer: Bringing People Back from the Dead
St. Vincent Ferrer is most famous for his missionary work, preaching, and theology. But he also had a pretty amazing supernatural ability: he could bring people back from the dead. And he apparently did this on several occasions.
According to one story, Vincent entered a church with a corpse inside. In front of a number of witnesses, Vincent simply made the Sign of the Cross over the corpse, and the person came back to life.
In one particularly impressive story, Vincent happened upon a procession for a certain man to be executed by hanging for committing a grievous crime. Somehow, Vincent knew that the person was innocent, and he pleaded with the government officials, but to no use. Coincidentally, a corpse was being carried by on a stretcher. Vincent asked the corpse, “Is this man guilty? Answer me!” The dead man immediately came back to life, sat up, and said, “He is not!” The man then laid back down on the stretcher. When Vincent offered the man a reward for helping to vindicate the innocent man, the man said, “No, father, for I am assured of my salvation.” And so he died again right then.
5) St. Padre Pio: Superman
A famous saint who lived in the 20th century, St. Padre Pio had just about every superpower you can think of: there are claims that he could bi-locate (be in more than one place at a time), read people’s minds (usually in the confessional – he was a priest), levitate, and heal sick people.
[See also: 3 Fascinating, Rare Videos of St. Padre Pio, the 20th Century Stigmatist]
In one story, a professional mathematician was confessing his sins to Pio in the confessional, though the fact that he did not tell Pio that he was a mathematician. When he was a bit vague on how many times he had committed a particular sin, Pio responded firmly: “You’re a mathematician, leave the confessional and comeback when you know how many times you did that.”
In 1950, Pio was once seen attending the funeral of a monk in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – but without ever having left his own monastery in Italy. Regarding his ability to bi-locate, one person reports that Pio once said, “I can do three thing at once: pray, confess, and go around the world.”