St. Paul of the Cross: A Young Adult's Role Model for Discernment

In the coming months, we will feature reflections on the vocation stories of the founders of our partner religious communities and other partner institutions. We invite you to visit us and read the stories of these unique individuals. We believe that the lives of these men and women continue to be rich sources of insight and inspiration. We begin with the story of the call of Saint Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionist Congregation.

Paul Danei: Called to Preach the Word of the Cross

Paul Francis Danei, who would later be known as Paul of the Cross, was a person who had to explore the meaning of his vocation. As a young adult, he realized that God was calling him to something special, but it took him many years to discern and fulfill the mission that God was giving him.

Paul was born in northern Italy in 1694. He was the second of 15 children, only six of whom lived to adulthood. Paul, who would later preach eloquently on the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, had firsthand knowledge of the reality of death and loss in his own family. Paul’s brother John Baptist, who would be a lifelong companion in his vocation, was born in 1695. Paul’s family knew the hardships of financial struggle and the frequent moves caused by these difficulties. His father had a clothing and tobacco business but suffered many setbacks, including being arrested for smuggling in an Italy that was at the time comprised of many small independent states. As a young man Paul received some education (the extent of which is uncertain) but also had to spend considerable time helping his father in business. Though his formal education was limited, he was a very bright man, gifted with creative insight and great ingenuity.

Paul was formed in the Catholic faith at home, particularly by his mother who was a woman of strong and courageous faith. When he was nineteen-years-old and studying in Genoa, he had his first major spiritual experience. We do not know all of the details of that experience but apparently it took place through a rather ordinary event. Paul went to Mass and was struck by a simple sermon given by a parish priest. As a result of that sermon he was moved to prayer and celebrated the sacrament of reconciliation. He later said that in that moment he became aware of being called to the service of God. In the next few months, he experienced some doubts about this call, wondering whether it was really God whom he had experienced or whether he was just deceiving himself. But further prayer convinced him that his experience was genuine.

Filled with fervor and youthful enthusiasm, Paul was on fire to give his life completely to God, even to die for Christ. So when Pope Clement XI called for a crusade against the Ottoman Empire in 1715, Paul volunteered for the army, hoping to die as a “martyr.” But after a few months of marching across the plains of Lombardy, Paul realized that fighting in a crusade was not the way that God wanted him to fulfill his call. So he left the army. This is just one of a number of instances in which Paul had to discover the meaning of his vocation through trial-and-error.

Paul was eventually led to make a retreat in which the direction for his life was further clarified. He was clothed in a simple black habit by a bishop in northern Italy on November 22, 1720 and spent the next forty days in a small room adjacent to a parish church. The bishop told Paul to keep a diary during that retreat, and this spiritual journal has become a classic of Christian spirituality. Paul was especially moved to contemplate the suffering Christ during this seminal time of prayer. He was given graced insight into the mystery of the boundless, saving love of God manifested and effected in the death and resurrection of Jesus. This retreat energized Paul to keep the memory of Jesus’ passion in his heart and to found a congregation of men (and later of women) dedicated to this same charism.

The actual process of founding this congregation proved to be quite an arduous endeavor. Paul seemed to run into one roadblock after another, some of which were placed in his way by Church officials and by other religious communities. For instance, in 1721 Paul decided to go to visit the pope himself and request permission to found a new religious community. Dressed in the garb of a pauper, carrying no official documentation or recommendations, Paul showed up at the summer residence of Pope Innocent XIII. He never got past the papal guard, who said to him: ”Do you know how many loiterers come down here every day? Be off with you!” Disheartened by this rejection, Paul walked down the hill to the nearby Basilica of Saint Mary Major. At prayer in a chapel of the Madonna in the basilica, Paul made a vow to promote the memory of the passion of Jesus and to gather companions for this purpose. Passionists still take this “fourth vow” when they make public profession, in addition to the traditional three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Paul finally received official papal approval for his new congregation from Pope Benedict XIV in 1741. In giving his approbation, the pope said, “This congregation should have been the first, but instead it was the last founded.” Paul spent the remainder of his life as a very effective preacher of missions, a spiritual director, leader of the Passionist community and founder of numerous retreats throughout Italy. Many of the missions he preached were in poor, malaria-infested areas of Italy that few priests wanted to visit.

The spirituality of Paul of the Cross is focused on the memory of the passion of Jesus. He understood contemplation of the passion as the doorway into closer intimacy with God. For Paul the memory of the passion was not a sad or morbid thing. Rather, it involved a deeper recognition of the infinite goodness of God, a realization of the depths of God’s love for us. He was convinced that by entering into the mystery of Christ’s suffering, we would be able to catch a glimpse of the lengths to which God would go in his love for us. We would recognize that God’s salvific love was costly even to God. And we would also be moved to deeper and more effective compassion for others, particularly for the “crucified of today.”

For anyone who may be trying to discern the call of God in his or her life, Paul of the Cross stands as a reminder to the fidelity and providence of God. My favorite quote from Paul comes from one of the many letters of spiritual direction that he wrote. To a young man who was struggling to figure out God’s will in his life, Paul wrote these words: “Don’t doubt but that God keeps you in his divine arms and that the time will come when he will teach you his most holy will.” Paul of the Cross would reassure all of us that if we truly seek to listen to God in our lives, God will be faithful in speaking to us and guiding us. God will indeed teach us his most holy will.

Fr. Robin Ryan, cp