THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL OF THE CROSS
Fr. Martin Bialas, C.P.

Paul Francis Danei, to be known later as Paul of the Cross, was born in northern Italy in the town of Ovada, situated about 50 km (31 miles) northwest of Genoa.  Although his father belonged to an old and noble family of Alessandria, over the course of years the family had been reduced to poverty.

Hardship was no stranger to the Danei household.  Both birth and death were major events in this trial-tried family.  Paul was the second oldest of sixteen children, of whom eleven died in infancy. Although the Daneis owned a small tobacco and dry-goods store, affairs connected with the business compelled the family to move frequently.  As a result, Paul attended school very irregularly.

Of great importance in Paul’s spiritual growth and development was the personality of his mother, whose deep and lively faith had overcome so many difficulties.  There was nothing remarkable about his younger years, however, other than the fact that Paul’s childhood was spent in the midst of a truly Christian family and that he was open to the influence of his parents and the religious education they provided.

It was not until 1713 that Paul faced the first great decision of his life.  Impressed with a sermon by a priest or perhaps just by a private conversation with him, Paul was moved by a spirit of compunction and repentance.  He made a general confession and resolved to make a radical surrender of his life to God.   He subsequently called this event his conversion to penitence.

Some years later Pope Clement XI called for a crusade against the Turks. Since Paul desired to die a martyr, he assumed the crusade was his call from God, and he enlisted as a volunteer.  After a while (a few months, perhaps spent in barracks and camps), Paul came to the conclusion that this was not the proper way to serve God. In the year 1716, he returned to his parents’ home, where he spent the next four years energetically helping his father in business.

I.  On the Way to Becoming the Founder of a Congregation

At this point, we are entering that period in the life of St. Paul of the Cross in which the history of his vocation as founder of a Congregation takes shape.  Because there are original documents preserved in which Paul himself speaks of the progression in his vocation to establish a monastic order, we are not forced to deal with vague conjectures and inferences made from secondary sources.  Paul’s vocation matured in four stages.  Initially, he felt called to retire into solitude . . . to wear a poor, black tunic . . . to live in extreme poverty . . . to lead a life of penance. In other words, he felt called to live as a hermit.

The second stage of Paul’s vocation consisted of an inspiration to “gather companions who would live together and work to strengthen souls in the fear of God”. In his own words, Paul admitted he did not pay any attention to this call at the beginning.  After a series of repeated inner lights, however, God strengthened in Paul “the desire and interior impulse to gather companions and, with the approval of Mother Church, to found a Congregation with the name ‘the Poor of Jesus’”.

The third stage was considered to have been reached from the moment Paul arrived at the inner certainty that he was called by God to found a religious community.  Only when the specific and extraordinary mission of the new Congregation was made clear to him was the fourth and last stage of Paul’s vocation reached.  More will be said later about this stage.

As early as 1715 (a date deduced from assertions made in quoted material), Paul had a firm desire to retire as a hermit.  Upon his return from military service, however, he remained with his family for several more years because of his parents’ appeal for his assistance.  Decisive in the life of Paul as hermit and as founder of the Passionist Congregation was the date November 22, 1720.  On that day, he bid farewell to his family and received from the hands of his former confessor and spiritual director Bishop Gattinara of Alessandria the garb of a hermit, which became the black tunic of his Congregation.

Paul spent the next six weeks, from November 23, 1720, to January 1, 1721, living under the poorest of conditions in a small storage cell adjacent to the sacristy of the church of St. Charles in Castellazzo.  These weeks served as a preparatory retreat for his life as hermit and founder.  Told by Bishop Gattinara to record his feelings and inner experiences which occurred during this time, Paul of the Cross (as he later came to be known) did so.  An authentic transcript of this spiritual diary has been preserved and is most revealing.  For example, in an entry of the first day Paul encapsulated the basic principle underlying his entire spirituality:  to be crucified with Christ.

During this forty-day retreat, St. Paul of the Cross wrote the Rule of the new monastic community whose members were to be called the Poor of Jesus.  The original manuscript, according to his own statement, was written in an amazingly short time of five days (December 2-7, 1720).  Unfortunately, it has not been preserved for us.  At the conclusion of these days spent in prayer, penance, and fasting, Paul wanted to leave for Rome to obtain papal approbation of this Rule.  Bishop Gattinara, however, thought that the time was not yet ripe and succeeded in dissuading the young founder.

In the following months, Paul lived as a hermit in the vicinity of Castellazzo, where he taught catechism to children, preached at Masses on Sundays, and even conducted a mission for the people at the request of his bishop.

In September 1721, Paul journeyed to Rome to obtain papal approval of the Rule for his new Congregation.  In this he met with great disillusionment, being chased away by the Quirinal’s vigilant guards, who did not spare the use of rough words.  After that encounter, an audience with the pope was scarcely to be considered.

Upon his return to Castellazzo, Paul accepted his first recruit, his brother John Baptist, who too received the black habit of the Congregation from the hands of Bishop Gattinara and was thus clothed as a hermit (today we could say as a Passionist). Until the end of his life in 1765, John Baptist would remain his brother’s most faithful companion.

During the three years that followed, the two brothers tried to make the Congregation’s Rule the norm regulating their lives.  According to the Rule, members of the “Poor of Jesus” had the duty not only to strive for personal sanctification but also to engage in active work for the good of their neighbor.  The Danei brothers did this by going out from the hermitage where they lived to help with such pastoral activities as teaching catechism and preaching in neighboring parishes.

Still preoccupied about the need for papal approbation of the Rule, Paul, this time accompanied by his brother, set out again for Rome.  Despite his desire for written authorization, Paul only obtained Pope Benedict’s verbal approval to gather companions.

By now Paul had become convinced that, if the Rule were ever to receive full approbation, it would be necessary for him to remain in Rome, where he could find friends and benefactors capable of negotiating requirements of approbation with the Holy See.  He therefore welcomed the invitation of Cardinal Corradini to care for invalids in the newly built Hospital of St. Gallicano, where Paul confronted human suffering in a dramatic way.

Besides assigning them to nurse the ill, the hospital director, Don Emilio Lami, also charged the brothers with the spiritual care of both patients and staff.  This they accomplished with such satisfaction that Don Emilio encouraged them both to study for the priesthood.  After a short period of instruction in pastoral theology at a Franciscan College at St. Bartholomew’s on the isle of Tiber, they were ordained to the priesthood by Pope Benedict XIII in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 7, 1727.

The two Danei brothers enjoyed religious freedom at the hospital.  They wore their black habits, and, insofar as possible, they ordered their day in conformity with the Rule of the Poor of Jesus.  Still, it was not the kind of life to which Paul felt called.  Having found influential friends who were willing to press for the approval of the Congregation’s Rule at the Holy See, Paul decided it would be best to leave the matter of approbation in their hands and for him to leave both the hospital and Rome.