St Paul of the Cross: Founder of the Passionists

St Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) was the Italian priest who founded the Passionists, the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, whose members bind themselves by a special vow to keep alive the memory of Our Lord's sufferings. He was the great mission preacher of eighteenth-century Italy, a mystic of the Cross and a man of fearsome penance, and Pope Pius IX canonized him in 1867. In the calendar of 1962 his feast falls on 28 April; here are his life according to Butler and the Roman Breviary, the order he established, and the prayers of his Mass, which is entirely proper to him, in Latin and English.

Who was St Paul of the Cross?

Paul Francis Danei was born at Ovada, in the republic of Genoa, in 1694, of a family of good standing that came from Castellazzo near Alessandria. Butler notes in passing that it was the year of Voltaire's birth. His father, Luke Danei, was a merchant; his parents were exemplary Christians. Whenever little Paul cried from pain or temper, his mother showed him the crucifix and said a few simple words about the sufferings of Our Lord: so, Butler says, she sowed the devotion to the Passion that was to rule his whole life.

The full lessons the Breviary read at Matins before the rubrics of 1960 contracted them into a single lesson (we follow them for several details below) record two signs of his childhood: a wonderful light that filled his mother's room on the night of his birth, and the help of the Queen of Heaven, who saved him from drowning when he fell into a river as a boy.

At fifteen a sermon convinced him that he was not answering grace as he should. He made a general confession and began a life of austerity, in which his younger brother John Baptist followed him step by step. In 1714 he went to Venice in answer to the appeal of Pope Clement XI for volunteers against the Turks, burning, the Breviary says, with the desire of martyrdom; but in prayer he came to know the will of God, gave back his arms of his own accord, and returned home to serve a better warfare. He refused an honourable marriage and an inheritance left to him by an uncle.

The vision of the black habit

For several years at Castellazzo Paul lived in almost unbroken prayer. In the summer of 1720, Butler relates, he saw in three vivid visions a black habit with the name of Jesus in white letters, surmounted by a white cross, on the breast; on the third occasion Our Lady herself, wearing the habit, told him that he was to found a congregation whose members would wear it and mourn continually for the Passion and death of her Son.

The bishop of Alessandria examined the account with several spiritual guides, judged that the call came from God, and clothed Paul in the black tunic, though the badge was not to be worn until the Pope had approved. Paul then shut himself for forty days in a dark, damp, triangular cell beside the sacristy of the church of St Charles at Castellazzo, on bread and water, sleeping on straw, and there, "without book or earthly guide", wrote the Rule which the Passionists still followed in Butler's day. During that retreat he first felt drawn to pray for the conversion of England: "That country is always before my eyes," he said in later years,.

What order did St Paul of the Cross establish?

Barefoot, bareheaded and penniless, Paul went to Rome to seek approval and was turned away at the Vatican, having brought no letters. On the way home he visited Monte Argentario, a mountain on the Tuscan coast almost cut off by the sea, and was so drawn to it that he returned there with John Baptist to live as hermits. Pope Benedict XIII ordained both brothers priests in Rome in 1727, and gave Paul leave to receive companions.

The beginnings were hard. The first recruits found the life too severe and all left; benefactors failed; an epidemic broke out in the villages, and the two brothers went about nursing the sick and reconciling sinners to God. The first Passionist house, which they called not a monastery but a Retreat, was finished on Monte Argentario in 1737. In 1741 Pope Benedict XIV approved the Rule, somewhat mitigated, and in 1769 Pope Clement XIV gave the institute the final approbation that set it on the same footing as the older religious orders.

The order he established is the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ: the Passionists, whose full title in Butler is the Barefooted Clerks of the Holy Cross and Passion. To the three vows of religion they add, the Breviary says, a fourth vow: to promote among the faithful a grateful remembrance of the Passion of the Lord. Their black habit bears the sign Paul saw in his vision. Late in life he founded the Passionist nuns, contemplatives who were to meditate on the excess of the charity of their divine Spouse; their first house opened at Corneto in 1771. Among the saints his congregation has given the Church is St Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, a young Passionist student who died in 1862.

The preacher of Christ crucified

From then on Paul preached missions in nearly every town of the Papal States and in much of Tuscany, always on the same subject, the Sacred Passion. The words of St Paul could stand over his whole life: "But we preach Christ crucified: unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness" (1 Corinthians i. 23), the very epistle of his feast. Butler describes him preaching cross in hand, arms outstretched, and scourging himself in public for the sins of the people, until hardened soldiers and bandits wept and went to confession. An officer told him: "Father, I have been in great battles without ever flinching at the cannon's roar. But when I listen to you I tremble from head to foot." In the confessional, Butler adds, he was all tenderness.

The older lessons of the Breviary record his gifts: he often wept while saying Mass, was seen in ecstasy and sometimes raised from the ground, had the gifts of prophecy and of tongues, read hearts, and had power over devils, sickness and the elements. So great was the flame of divine love in his breast that the garment nearest his heart was often found as if scorched by fire, and two of his ribs were seen to be raised. Yet he judged himself, it says, "an unprofitable servant and a most wretched sinner".

His whole spirituality is in the Introit of his Mass, taken from St Paul: "With Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians ii. 19-20). For those who wish to follow him in meditating on the Passion, the classic way is the Stations of the Cross, and our page on the Passion of Jesus Christ gathers the Gospel account.

What mortifications did St Paul of the Cross practise?

His penances are among the most severe recorded in modern times, and the sources describe them soberly:

• From the age of fifteen, according to Butler, he slept on the bare ground, rose at midnight to pray for hours, and scourged himself.
• The older lessons of the Breviary add vigils, fasts and the discipline, and on Fridays a drink of vinegar mixed with gall.
• During the forty days' retreat of 1720 he lived on bread and water and slept on straw.
• He went barefoot, as the old title of his institute, the Barefooted Clerks, recalls, and as a missioner scourged himself in public for the sins of the people.
• He kept this hard way of life, the same lessons say, "with the greatest tenacity" into extreme old age.

Such penances belong to a particular call of God and are not a model to be copied without direction; the Church's ordinary teaching on the subject is set out in our page on Christian mortification and penance.

St Paul of the Cross quotes

Butler preserves several of his sayings and those addressed to him:

• On England: "That country is always before my eyes. If England again becomes Catholic, immeasurable will be the benefits to Holy Church."
• The officer at the mission: "Father, I have been in great battles without ever flinching at the cannon's roar. But when I listen to you I tremble from head to foot."
• His judgement on himself, as the older lessons of the Breviary record it: an "unprofitable servant", "a most wretched sinner".

A great many of his letters, most of them letters of spiritual direction, were published in four volumes in 1924; Butler points especially to the journal of the forty days' retreat of 1720 as the document that best opens his soul.

How did St Paul of the Cross die?

In 1765 he lost John Baptist, who had been his inseparable companion and, since their ordination, his confessor. In 1771 he was so ill that he asked for the Pope's blessing for death; Clement XIV answered that he must live a little longer, for he could not yet be spared. He rallied for some years. Worn out as much by his austerities as by age, he gave his sons his last counsels "as the inheritance of his spirit", received the sacraments of the Church, was comforted, the Breviary says, by a heavenly vision, and died in Rome on 18 October 1775, on the very day he had foretold, at the age of eighty.

Where is St Paul of the Cross buried?

In Rome, in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul on the Caelian Hill, which Pope Clement XIV had given to his congregation, in memory, Butler says, of the bond between the two brothers Paul and John Baptist. His body rests in the basilica.

The prayer of St Paul of the Cross (Missal of 1962)

His Mass is proper throughout: the Introit Christo confixus sum Cruci, the Epistle of the word of the Cross (1 Corinthians i. 17-25), and its own Collect, Secret and Postcommunion. Being addressed to Our Lord, these prayers close with Qui vivis et regnas.

Collect, 28 April

Dómine Jesu Christe, qui, ad mystérium Crucis prædicándum, sanctum Paulum singulári caritáte donásti, et per eum novam in Ecclésia famíliam floréscere voluísti: ipsíus nobis intercessióne concéde; ut, passiónem tuam júgiter recoléntes in terris, ejúsdem fructum cónsequi mereámur in cœlis: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst endow Saint Paul with a singular charity for preaching the mystery of the Cross, and didst will that through him a new family should flourish in the Church: grant us by his intercession that, ever recalling Thy Passion on earth, we may deserve to obtain its fruit in heaven: Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Cœléstem nobis, Dómine, prǽbeant mystéria hæc passiónis et mortis tuæ fervórem: quo sanctus Paulus, ea offeréndo, corpus suum hóstiam vivéntem, sanctam tibíque placéntem exhíbuit: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

May these mysteries of Thy Passion and death, O Lord, impart to us that heavenly fervour with which Saint Paul, in offering them, presented his body a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing unto Thee: Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Postcommunion

Súmpsimus, Dómine, divínum sacraméntum, imménsæ caritátis tuæ memoriále perpétuum: tríbue, quǽsumus; ut, sancti Pauli méritis et imitatióne, aquam de fóntibus tuis hauriámus in vitam ætérnam saliéntem, et tuam sacratíssimam passiónem córdibus nostris impréssam móribus et vita teneámus: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

We have received, O Lord, the divine sacrament, the everlasting memorial of Thine immense charity: grant, we beseech Thee, that by the merits and imitation of Saint Paul we may draw from Thy fountains the water springing up unto life everlasting, and may keep in our conduct and our life Thy most sacred Passion imprinted on our hearts: Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The Collect is the simplest prayer to St Paul of the Cross: through him we ask to keep the Passion always in mind on earth and to receive its fruit in heaven. Before a crucifix, as his mother taught him, it takes on its full sense; our page on the crucifix explains why Catholics keep Christ upon the Cross. Those who wish to make a novena may simply pray this Collect on the nine days before his feast; our page on the novena to St Paul of the Cross gives a longer form.

When is the feast day of St Paul of the Cross?

In the calendar of 1962 the feast of St Paul of the Cross, Confessor, falls on 28 April. It is a feast of the third class, in white vestments, without the Creed; at Matins it has a single nocturn, with his life read in one contracted lesson. The day always falls in Paschaltide: in the years when it is a Sunday, or falls within the octave of Easter, the saint gives way to the higher day. You will find it in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Paul of the Cross takes his place among the saints of the year in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day.

The calendar of 1969 moved his feast to 19 October, the day after his death.

What is St Paul of the Cross the patron saint of?

No act of the Holy See in the sources we have read names him patron of anything. He is honoured above all as the founder and father of the Passionists, and the Collect of his feast teaches for what grace to invoke him: to keep the Passion of Christ in our hearts. His long prayer for the conversion of England, recorded by Butler, gives English-speaking Catholics a particular reason to ask his help.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St Paul of the Cross?

An Italian priest (1694-1775), born at Ovada, who founded the Congregation of the Passion, the Passionists, preached missions on the Passion throughout central Italy, and was canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1867.

What was his family name?

Danei: Butler calls him Paul Francis, the eldest son of Luke Danei.

Why is he called "of the Cross"?

Because the whole of his life and preaching was given to the mystery of the Cross: the Collect of his feast says that God endowed him with a singular charity "for preaching the mystery of the Cross".

What is the fourth vow of the Passionists?

To promote among the faithful the grateful memory of the Passion of Our Lord, in addition to poverty, chastity and obedience.

When did St Paul of the Cross die?

In Rome, on 18 October 1775, at the age of eighty, on the day he had himself foretold.

Where is St Paul of the Cross buried?

In the Basilica of Saints John and Paul on the Caelian Hill in Rome, which Pope Clement XIV had given to him.

When was St Paul of the Cross canonized?

Pope Pius IX beatified him and then, after new miracles, canonized him in 1867.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962 with the proper Mass of St Paul of the Cross, the Breviary, the traditional calendar and the novena to St Paul of the Cross, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 28 April (St Paul of the Cross, Founder of the Passionists). Roman Breviary, 28 April, lesson of St Paul of the Cross (1960) and the lessons read before 1960. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 28 April. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, 1 Corinthians i. 17-25; Galatians ii. 19-20.