PAOLO della CROCE, Saint. – Founder of the Passionists, born Paolo Francesco Danei, at Ovada (Alessandria) on 3 January 1694, died at Rome on 18 October 1775. At the age of nineteen, after hearing a sermon by the parish priest, he felt deeply moved and resolved to give himself entirely to the service of God: this was his “conversion,” as he called II. Driven by a desire to die for the faith, at twenty-one he volunteered for the army of the Republic of Venice, which was preparing an expedition against the Turks, encouraged and blessed by the Pope; but while praying in a church before the Most Holy Sacrament exposed for the Forty Hours, he understood that God had destined him for other battles. Returning to Castellazzo, where his family had moved, he began a life of extraordinary penance and prayer.
On 22 November 1720 he was clothed by Msgr. Francesco M. Arborio di Gattinara, Bishop of Alessandria and his spiritual father, in the black penitential tunic that would become the habit of the new Institute, which God was calling him to found. Withdrawing for forty days into a poor little room adjoining the church of St Charles in Castellazzo, he wrote the Rules of the new Institute in five days, without having read any others before, yet with such an abundance of heavenly light that it seemed to him as if someone were dictating them to him.
In 1721 he went to Rome to beg Innocent XIII for approval of the Rules, but when the Pope saw him so wretchedly dressed, he was turned away by a court official. Returning to Castellazzo to fetch his brother Giovanni Battista, together they retired to Monte Argentario, which was to be the cradle of the new Institute, renewing there the penances of the ancient Thebaid. On feast days they would descend to the villages below to instruct the faithful in Christian doctrine and inflame them with holy exhortations, especially recalling to them the Passion of Christ.
In the Holy Year 1725 they obtained from Benedict XIII, in person, permission to gather companions; in 1727, while again in Rome, occupied in serving the sick in the hospital of St Gallicano, they were both ordained priests by the same Pontiff in St Peter’s Basilica. As soon as they were free to follow their vocation, however, they returned to Monte Argentario.
PAOLO della CROCE, Saint. – Founder of the Passionists, born Paolo Francesco Danei, at Ovada (Alessandria) on 3 January 1694, died at Rome on 18 October 1775. At the age of nineteen, after hearing a sermon by the parish priest, he felt deeply moved and resolved to give himself entirely to the service of God: this was his “conversion,” as he called II. Driven by a desire to die for the faith, at twenty-one he volunteered for the army of the Republic of Venice, which was preparing an expedition against the Turks, encouraged and blessed by the Pope; but while praying in a church before the Most Holy Sacrament exposed for the Forty Hours, he understood that God had destined him for other battles. Withdrawing for forty days into a poor little room adjoining the church of St Charles in Castellazzo, he wrote the Rules of the new Institute in five days, without having read any others before, yet with such an abundance of heavenly light that it seemed to him as if someone were dictating them to him.
In 1721 he went to Rome to beg Innocent XIII for approval of the Rules, but when the Pope saw him so wretchedly dressed, he was turned away by a court official. Returning to Castellazzo to fetch his brother Giovanni Battista, together they retired to Monte Argentario, which was to be the cradle of the new Institute, renewing there the penances of the ancient Thebaid. On feast days they would descend to the villages below to instruct the faithful in Christian doctrine and inflame them with holy exhortations, especially recalling to them the Passion of Christ.
In the Holy Year 1725 they obtained from Benedict XIII, in person, permission to gather companions; in 1727, while again in Rome, occupied in serving the sick in the hospital of St Gallicano, they were both ordained priests by the same Pontiff in St Peter’s Basilica. As soon as they were free to follow their vocation, however, they returned to Monte Argentario.
The mystic ladder, the daily meditation on the sufferings of Jesus, was for him “the gate that leads the soul to intimate union with God, to interior recollection and to the most sublime contemplation” (Lettere, I, 582).
Esteem for the saint accompanied him throughout his life, not only among the common people but also among bishops, cardinals, and popes. Clement XIV called him “his little father” and visited him when ill in the retreat of SS. John and Paul in Rome; Pius VI also visited him, and the saint foretold to him the severe trials that awaited him.
He died in the aforesaid retreat at the age of eighty-one. Pius IX canonized him on 29 June 1867. His body is venerated in the basilica of SS. John and Paul. Feast day: 28 April.
Giacinto del S.mo Crocifisso
PAOLO DELLA CROCE, Saint – Portrait on canvas by Giovanni Battista di s. Michele arcangelo, brother of P. della C. (18th cent.) – Rome, retreat of SS. John and Paul.
PAOLO di GIACOMO. – Monk and historian. Almost everything known of his life is derived from his own works. Of noble Lombard stock settled in Cividale del Friuli since the conquest, he was the son of Warnefrit and Teudelinda; he himself mentions a brother Arichi and a sister who was a nun.
He was educated at the court of Pavia, where his teacher was a certain Flavian, a nephew of the grammarian Felix, and he belonged to the palace clergy. Protected by King Rachis, he later served King Desiderius, who entrusted him with the education of his daughter Adelpenga and accompanied her to Benevento when she went to be married to Duke Arichi. Around 768 he presented her with his Historia Romana, a continuation of that of Eutropius, carried down to the time of Justinian. The fall of the Lombard kingdom reduced Paolo’s family to poverty and forced him himself to take refuge by becoming a monk at Montecassino, which was then flourishing more than ever; so many misfortunes led Paolo in 782 to seek mercy from Charlemagne for himself and his kin. Charlemagne summoned him to his court as a teacher alongside another