Glorious Feast of Saint Paul of the Cross

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Today is a GLORIOUS day for us Passionists here in North America!  It is a morning of prayer with Solemn Office of Tierce (midmorning prayer) being chanted in an hour with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. It is a prayer morning for us and a Feast day afternoon.  This afternoon a group of us will be practicing our skit for this Saturday's monastic jubilee celebration for Sr. Mary Therese. So next week you can look forward to some hilarious photos from that day.

In the meantime...the following is a short biography of our founder. It is from our Passionist proper office book. Don't ask me where they got he bio from that is in the universal breviary. I don't know who it is talking about but it is not a summation of the life of St. Paul of the Cross. Hopefully when a new English edition comes out in several years this will be corrected.

Anyway...I am rambling because I don't have much to say...I guess this means I need to be off to pray that the graces of redemption may spread throughout the world.

ST PAUL OF THE CROSS - MYSTIC OF THE PASSION OF CHRIST

Paul Daneo was born in 1694 at Ovada in Piedmont. During his youth, he helped his father in business. Called by God to follow the example of Jesus Crucified, he received the religious habit in 1720 and committed himself totally to asceticism and the apostolate.

While temporarily engaged in the care of the sick at Rome, he was ordained to the priesthood by Pope Benedict XIII. He then withdrew into solitude on Monte Argentario together with his brother, the Venerable Father John Baptist of St Michael the Archangel and, under God's inspiration, founded the Congregation of the Passion. The principle purpose of the Congregation is to meditate on and proclaim the passion and death of the Lord. For the same purpose, he also founded the Passionist Nuns as a contemplative community.

Tireless preacher of the word of the Cross, outstanding superior of the Congregation, eminent model of penance and contemplation, and enlightened director of souls, Paul of the Cross is considered the greatest mystic of the eighteenth century. He died in Rome on October 18, 1775.