Saint Paul of the Cross

Paul of the Cross, CP (Italian: San Paolo della Croce; born Paolo Francesco Danei; 3 January 1694 – 18 October 1775) was an Italian Catholic mystic, and founder of the Passionists. Paul of the Cross, originally named Paolo Francesco Danei, was born on 3 January 1694, in the town of Ovada, Piedmont, between Turin and Genoa in the Duchy of Savoy in northern Italy. His parents were Luca and Anna Maria Massari Danei (sometimes spelled Daneii). His father ran a small dry-goods store, and moved his family and store from town to town near Genoa trying to make ends meet. Paul was the second of sixteen children, six of whom survived infancy; and learned at an early age the reality of death and the uncertainty of life. Paul received his early education from a priest who kept a school for boys, in Cremolino, Lombardy. He made great progress and at the age of fifteen he left school and returned to his home at Castellazzo. In his early years he taught catechism in churches near his home. Paul experienced a conversion to a life of prayer at the age of 19. Influenced by his reading of the Treatise on the Love of God by Francis de Sales and the direction he received from priests of the Capuchin Order, it became his lifelong conviction that God is most easily found in the Passion of Christ. In 1715, Paul left his work helping his father to join a crusade against the Turks who were threatening the Venetian Republic, but soon realized that the life of a soldier was not his calling. He returned to help in the family business. On his way home he stopped at Novello, where he helped an aging, childless couple until the end of 1716. They offered to make him their heir, but he declined. His uncle, Father Christopher Daneii, tried to arrange a marriage, but Paul had no plans to marry. When his uncle died, he kept for himself only the priest's Breviary.