Upon entering the front doors of our Passionist Monastery in Rome (Sts. John and Paul’s), I cannot help but feel a certain timelessness.
The first set of steps may easily date back to the Roman Empire.
Every time I walk up those steps, I notice how worn they are, and I wonder how many different pairs of feet have stepped here over the centuries. Turn left down the first corridor into an unassuming hallway and you will come to a small room on the left side.
This was Paul of the Cross’ room in the later stages of his life. It is also the room he died in.
Last month, I visited Sts. John and Paul’s for the annual gathering of the Configuration presidents with Fr. Giuseppe Adobati, CP, Superior General. He selected our holy founder’s historic room to begin each day.
Gathering every morning at 7:00 a.m., we celebrated Eucharist on the very altar St. Paul of the Cross used. With twelve of us in this tiny room, it was crowded and not really comfortable. But no one would dare complain. We knew this was a special experience.
A Room Where His Spirit Lives On
Above the altar is an artist’s rendition of Paul of the Cross’ last hour. Surrounded by brothers and gazing up at Christ ready to welcome him, he gave up his spirit in this very room.
Paul’s special crucifix hangs in this room as well. This is the one he used when he preached his famous mission at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. It would be his last public mission.
Recall that he was so weak he could not make the first few days. The mission began without him. But as the week went on and the conclusion of the mission came into sight, he made his way up to the platform.
Standing barefoot, holding onto a wooden staff for support, his voice filled the crowded basilica, affecting the hearts of all who listened and moving many to tears.
Of course, none of us were there on the day he died, but you cannot help but feel something special: a unique connection to a moment of significant history that still holds a place after all these years. It is a reach back in time, and what we find there has not been forgotten. It still lives on.
The effects of the room are far more powerful than a museum display because a person physically enters into the room, prays, sings, listens, meditates, dines on the eucharistic sacrament and receives Paul’s blessing.
Remembering That Carries the Past Forward
As we celebrate the feast day of our holy founder, I hold strong to this memory. One reason the Church gifts us with feast days is that it encourages us to take time to actively remember.
There is something very life-giving about being able to reach back to the truth or reality of our foundational days. Pulling that through time to our contemporary world gives us the power to hold it, cherish it and build on it.
Active remembering carries the past forward. It is the anamnesis Jesus asked us to do in the Eucharist when he said, “Do this in memory of me.”
The Person Behind the Saint
Today we do not celebrate a movement, a devotion or a theology. We celebrate a person. Before he was Paul of the Cross, he was Paolo Francesco Danei. He was a baby once, held by a mother who had no idea what her son would become. He was one child out of sixteen, and his family endured the sorrow of losing ten children.
He was an older brother and a young man who heard God’s call and walked into the cloud of the unknown, trusting beyond sight and believing the Lord’s will would steer him onward. The passion he found inside himself led him from teaching small catechism classes to eventually preaching great missions. And his extended times of solitude gifted him with insights into the suffering of Christ and the sorrows of Mary.
I recently was reading the twelfth letter in our collection of his handwritten letters. This is early on in his life. He is in his late twenties, and he writes home to his family, calling his brothers and sisters to great devotion in their faith while at the same time announcing that he is going to be moving into solitude. It is one of Paul’s longest letters. I found it so deeply moving. The call is so strong, and there is a need to take leave of the family.
I invite you to read the letter on this feast day:
Read St. Paul of the Cross’ Letter to His Family
Carrying His Faith into Our Lives
For some, looking into the past is nostalgia. For others it is historical curiosity. But we are different because we are people of faith.
As we celebrate this feast day, I pray you have the opportunity to reach into the past and connect with the real human person of Paolo Francesco Danei, rather than the images we see in the paintings and the marble statues that put him on a pedestal.
May our active remembering help carry the past forward, and may the Passion of Jesus Christ be always in our hearts.
Have a blessed and joyous feast day!
