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 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. The first name Paul received for his community was "
the Poor of Jesus"; later they came to be known as the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, or the
Passionists. With the encouragement of his bishop, who clothed him in the black habit of a hermit, Paul wrote the rule of his new community (of which he was, as yet, the only member) After a short course in pastoral theology, the brothers were ordained to the priesthood by
Pope Benedict XIII on 7 June 1727, in
St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Their preaching apostolate and the retreats they gave in seminaries and religious houses brought their mission to the attention of others and gradually the community began to grow. The first Retreat (the name Passionists traditionally gave to their
monasteries) was opened in 1737 on
Monte Argentario (
Province of Grosseto); the community now had nine members. Paul called his monasteries "retreats" to underline the life of solitude and contemplation which he believed was necessary for someone who wished to preach the message of the Cross. In addition to the communal celebration of the divine office, members of his community were to devote at least three hours to contemplative prayer each day. The austerity of life practised by the first Passionists did not encourage large numbers, but Paul preferred a slow, at times painful, growth to something more spectacular. More than two thousand of his letters, most of them letters of spiritual direction, have been preserved. He died on 18 October 1775, at the Retreat of Saints John and Paul (
SS. Giovanni e Paolo). By the time of his death, the congregation founded by Paul of the Cross had one hundred and eighty fathers and brothers, living in twelve Retreats, mostly in the
Papal States. There was also a monastery of
contemplative nuns in Corneto (today known as
Tarquinia), founded by Paul a few years before his death to promote the memory of the Passion of Jesus by their life of prayer and penance. ==Legacy==