Paul of the Cross
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| Saint Paul of the Cross | |
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| Confessor | |
| Born | January 3, 1694, Ovada, Piedmont, Italy |
| Died | October 18, 1775, Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Rome |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | May 1, 1853, Rome by Pope Pius IX |
| Canonized | June 29, 1867, Rome by Pope Pius IX |
| Major shrine | Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Rome |
| Feast | October 19; April 28 (Traditional Roman Catholics) |
| Attributes | Confessor |
 Saints Portal |
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Saint Paul of the Cross (January 3, 1694 - October 18, 1775) was an Italian mystic and founder of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ.
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[edit] Biography
Saint Paul of the Cross, originally named Paolo Francesco Danei, was born on January 3, 1694, in the town of Ovada, Piedmont, between Turin and Genoa in northern Italy. He is considered to be among the greatest Catholic mystics of the eighteenth century.
Paul, a son of a wealthy merchant family, experienced a conversion to a life of prayer at the age of 19, after a very normal and pious life. His early reading of the "Treatise on the Love of God" by Saint Francis de Sales and the direction he received from priests of the Capuchin Order taught him the primacy of love and at the same time the need to go beyond our own images of God. It became St Paul's lifelong conviction that God is most easily found by us in the Passion of Jesus Christ. He saw the Passion of Christ as being the most overwhelming sign of God's love and at the same time the door to union with him. His life was devoted to bringing this message to all and founding a community whose members would do the same.
"I am Paul of the Cross in whom Jesus has been crucified"
- -St. Paul of the Cross[1]
When he was 26 years old, St Paul of the Cross had a series of prayer-experiences which made it clear to him that God was inviting him to form a community who would live an evangelical life and promote the love of God revealed in the Passion of Jesus. In a vision, he saw himself clothed in the habit he and his companions would wear: a long, black tunic on the front of which was a heart surmounted by a white cross, and in the heart was written "the Passion of Jesus Christ". On seeing it, he heard these words spoken to him: "This is to show how pure the heart must be that bears the holy name of Jesus graven upon it". The first name Paul received for his community was "the Poor of Jesus"; later they came to be known as the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, or the Passionists.
With the encouragement of his bishop, who clothed him in the black habit of a hermit, Paul wrote the rule of his new community (of which he was, as yet, the only member) during a retreat of forty days at the end of 1720. The community was to live a penitential life, in solitude and poverty, teaching people in the easiest possible way how to meditate on the Passion of Jesus.
His first companion was his own brother, John Baptist, who was ordained to the priesthood with Paul by Pope Benedict XIII on June 7, 1727, in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. After ordination they devoted themselves to preaching missions in parishes, particularly in remote country places where there were not a sufficient number of priests pastorally involved. Their preaching apostolate and the retreats they gave in seminaries and religious houses brought their mission to the attention of others and gradually the community began to grow.
The austerity of life practised by the first Passionists did not encourage large numbers, but Paul preferred a slow, at times painful, growth to something more spectacular. His main aim in the community was, as he said himself, to form "a man totally God-centred, totally apostolic, a man of prayer, detached from the world, from things, from himself so that he may in all truth be called a disciple of Jesus Christ."
The first Retreat (the name Passionists traditionally gave to their monasteries) was opened in 1737 on Monte Argentario (Province of Grosseto); the community now had nine members. Paul called his monasteries "retreats" to underline the life of solitude and contemplation which he believed was necessary for someone who wished to preach the message of the Cross. In addition to the communal celebration of the divine office, members of his community were to devote at least three hours to contemplative prayer each day.
During his lifetime, Paul of the Cross was best known as a popular preacher and a spiritual director. More than two thousand of his letters, most of them letters of spiritual direction, have been preserved.
He died on October 18, 1775, at the Retreat of Saints John and Paul (SS. Giovanni e Paolo). By the time of his death, the congregation founded by Saint Paul of the Cross had one hundred and eighty fathers and brothers, living in twelve Retreats, mostly in the Papal States. There was also a monastery of contemplative sisters in Corneto (today known as Tarquinia), founded by Paul a few years before his death to promote the memory of the Passion of Jesus by their life of prayer and penance.
Saint Paul of the Cross was beatified on October 1, 1852, and canonized on June 29, 1867 by Blessed Pius IX. His feast day is on October 19, the day after that of his death, since October 18 is the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist. In the pre-1969 liturgical calendar, it was celebrated on April 28 (see General Roman Calendar of 1962 and General Roman Calendar as in 1954). Traditional Roman Catholics continue to commemorate the feast day of "St Paul of the Cross, Confessor" on April 28.
[edit] An exerpt from a letter from Saint Paul of the Cross
It is an excellent and holy practice to call to mind and meditate on our Lord's Passion, since it is by this path that we shall arrive at union with God. In this, the holiest of all schools, true wisdom is learned, for it was there that all the saints became wise. Taken from a letter written by St. Paul of the Cross
[edit] References
[edit] External Links
[edit] Further reading
- "Letters of Saint Paul of the Cross" (3 Volumes), Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000
- Bialas, Martin. "The Mysticism of the Passion in St Paul of the Cross" (Introduction by Jurgen Moltmann), San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990
- Spencer, Paul Francis. "As a Seal upon your Heart - The Life of St Paul of the Cross, Founder of the Passionists," Slough: St Paul's, 1994
- Cingolani, Gabriele. "Saint Paul of the Cross: Challenged by the Crucified," Passionist Publications, 1994
"Paul of the Cross". Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.
