I’ve gathered together some bits and pieces that I have written over the years on Saint Paul of the Cross and, with the help of weebly.com, I have created a little site for those who want to read something about him and his spirituality. The site is called Passio in Cordibus, recalling the words of Saint Paul of the Cross May the Passion of Jesus Christ be always in our hearts. It’s very unfinished, but I hope I will get some technical support and helpful improvements from my guardian angel over the next few months. In the meantime, I wanted to make these texts available as near the Feast of Saint Paul of the Cross as possible. The picture used on the site is a detail of the above picture of Saint Gabriel, which in turn is a detail from a large painting in the Passionist church at Brugnato, Italy. You can see the full painting on the Passionist Vocations site.

Photo: Window in the Chapel of the Passionist Saints, Holy Cross, Ardoyne

Today in the United States is the Feast of Saint Paul of the Cross (-yesterday’s feast of the North American Martyrs used to take precedence there, so Saint Paul moved back a day to 20 October in the U.S. Calendar).

Glenn Dallaire, who set up a website on Saint Gemma Galgani a while ago, is launching his new site on Saint Paul of the Cross.

Photo: Members of Passionist Youth Groups from Scotland, Ireland and Australia
at the end of the World Youth Day in Sydney, 2008

Yesterday, in the Czech Republic, Pope Benedict celebrated Mass for the feast of Saint Wenceslaus; at the end of the Mass, the Pope addressed the young people present and encouraged them to open their hearts to Christ:
I invite you all to consider the experience of Saint Augustine, who said that the heart of every person is restless until it finds what it truly seeks. And he discovered that Jesus Christ alone is the answer that can satisfy his and every person’s desire for a life of happiness, filled with meaning and value (cf. Confessions, I.1.1). As he did with Augustine, so the Lord comes to meet each one of you. He knocks at the door of your freedom and asks to be welcomed as a friend. He wants to make you happy, to fill you with humanity and dignity. The Christian faith is this: encounter with Christ, the living Person who gives life a new horizon and thereby a definitive direction. And when the heart of a young person opens up to his divine plans, it is not difficult to recognize and follow his voice.

The Pope then spoke of the World Youth Day, inviting young people to come to Madrid in 2011:
You, my dear young people, are the hope of the Church! She expects you to become messengers of hope, as happened last year in Australia, during World Youth Day, that great manifestation of youthful faith that I was able to experience personally, and in which some of you took part. Many more of you will be able to come to Madrid in August 2011. I invite you here and now to participate in this great gathering of young people with Christ in the Church.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Mother Catherine C.P., former superior of the contemplative Passionist Nuns in England, who died today. She was 102 years old, and was a good friend to me for the last thirty years. May her great soul rest in peace.

I haven’t written anything here in the past two weeks as my spare time has been taken up with preparations for our Passionist Institute which begins this evening at the Emmaus Retreat Centre, near Swords, Dublin. We have just over forty participants, laypeople and Passionists, from various parts of our Province. I will be giving talks tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday on Saint Paul of the Cross, with powerpoint slides (‘Saint Paul of the Cross and Technology’), and on Friday Father James Sweeney C.P. will be addressing some more recent questions. Father Frank Keevins C.P. will act as moderator and lead us through these days.

In its online catalogue, the National Library of Scotland gives a short excerpt from a video of the first Lourdes Day Rally of the Diocese of Galloway held at Fatima House, Coodham in 1958. Coodham was a Passionist Retreat House from about 1946 until 1988. After the Passionists sold the property, it was allowed to fall into ruin, with the interior being completely destroyed by fire some years ago. The house has now been restored and converted into nine high quality apartments.

Today in the Passionist Calendar we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady, Mother of Holy Hope. The origin of the devotion among the Passionists is an image of Mary holding the child Jesus who has a cross in his hand, recalling the teaching of Saint Paul of the Cross that ‘the whole life of Jesus was a cross’ and the life of a disciple of Jesus means remaining on the cross with him. The original picture, described as a copper engraving (and, I suspect [i.e. this is my own personal theory, so you don't have to believe it] the work of the neapolitan artist Sebastiano Conca), belonged to Father Lorenzo Ricci, the General of the Jesuits. When the Society of Jesus was suppressed in 1773, the image came into the possession of Saint Paul of the Cross. Paul’s successor, Father John Baptist Gorresio, had copies made and it became the custom for each religious to have one of these prints (or perhaps engravings) in his cell.

Father Gary has a long quotation on Mary, Mother of Hope from Pope Benedict’s Encyclical Spe Salvi. He also has pointed out a reflection on the Mother of Holy Hope by Father Sebastian MacDonald C.P., and the Young Priest gives us a Prayer to Our Lady of Holy Hope.

Given the recent news of Cardinal Newman’s impending beatification, it is interesting to note that when Newman was returning to England from Rome in 1847, the Passionist General, Father Anthony Testa, gave him some prints of the picture of Our Lady of Holy Hope to bring to Blessed Dominic Barberi C.P. This was the first time the picture had been brought to the English-speaking world. Thank you, soon-to-be-blessed John Henry Newman, for bringing us the Mother of Holy Hope!

Going through some papers today, I came across a note I had taken a few months ago when I spent a day reading at the archives of the Scots College in Rome. In a letter presenting a new student to the Rector of the College in 1877, a diocesan official wrote: He has unquestionably a very ecclesiastical turn of mind and like so many converts he has a strong passion for ceremonies, altars, vestments, etc.

The picture shows the final page (The End) of Pugin’s Ecclesiastical Ornament.

An exercise we were often given in school was to compare and contrast two pieces of writing. Why not try this yourself with these two accounts of the forthcoming visit of the relics of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux to Her Majesty’s Prison, Wormwood Scrubs. For inmates at London’s Wormwood Scrubs prison praying for redemption, help may soon be at hand from “the greatest saint of modern times”, writes Caroline Davies in The Guardian (of all places), while John Walsh comments in The Independent: To find, in 2009, that a casket of relics from a long-dead saint can warrant its own multi-venue rock tour of western Europe, with an entourage of stage managers and roadies, thousands of adoring zealots and (okay, I’m guessing) special tour merchandise (“£15 for the Little Flower T-shirt: roll up!”) is more than laughable; it’s positively alarming.

(Interestingly, John is the author of The Fallen Angels, described as A work of autobiography dominated by a single theme — the author’s love-hate relationship with his Irish-Catholic heritage.)

You can find more information on the Visit of the Relics of Saint Thérèse to England and Wales here.

The Canonisation of Saint Maria Goretti was the first canonisation to be held in Saint Peter’s Square, attended by more than half a million people. The photograph shows Pope Pius XII celebrating Maria’s canonisation. Assunta Goretti, who watched the ceremony from above the Piazza, was the first mother to be present at her daughter’s canonisation.
(Photo: copyright Life magazine.)

GloriaTV has a very interesting documentary on the life of Saint Maria Goretti, whose feast is today. It is in two parts. Among Passionists who are featured are Father Godfrey Poage, whose vivid imagination made Saint Gabriel the unofficial patron saint of handguns, and Father Fiorenzo Bordo who is now Provincial Superior of the Presentation Province. Click here for part one and here for part two. Part two has some rare film footage of the canonisation ceremony and the voice of Pope Pius XII proclaiming Maria’s sanctity, as well as Father Godfrey’s own recollections of what happened that day.

Alessandro Serenelli, who killed Maria, is one of the great marvels of the mercy of God. After years in prison filled with hatred, he was converted to Christ through Maria’s intercession and, after his release, went to Maria’s mother to ask her forgiveness. He spent the remaining years of his life in a Capuchin monastery and died a saintly death at the age of eighty-eight.