St Paul of the Cross

Plot

Saint 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.
Paul, a son of a wealthy merchant family experienced a conversion to a life of prayer at the age of 19, after a very normal and pious life. His early reading of the "Treatise on the Love of God" by Saint Francis de Sales and the direction he received from priests of the Capuchin Order taught him the primacy of love and at the same time the need to go beyond our own images of God. It became St Paul's lifelong conviction that God is most easily found by us in the Passion of Jesus Christ. He saw the Passion of Christ as being the most overwhelming sign of God's love and at the same time the door to union with him. His life was devoted to bringing this message to all and founding a community whose members would do the same.