Saint Paul of the Cross
From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters CP
Sunday 23rd October 2016
Listen to this: “I am in great trouble. The Congregation is hanging only by a slender thread. I expect even more anguish and trials because that is the way it works. I have trouble eating and sleeping, but I cling to the will of God as tightly as I can.” That’s our Paul talking. We celebrate his feast every year on Oct. 19th.
Paul was a passionate man who fell in love with God early in life and his whole long life was driven by the desire to help others fall in love with the living God just as he did. He wanted us to experience God as he experienced God. And that’s why he could cling to God’s will despite anguish and trials, despite having trouble eating and sleeping. As he said, “That’s the way it works!” For all of us, coming to know and love God is much more like falling in love than knowing God through study or learning.
Like Paul the Apostle, our Paul felt he had been grasped by God, captured by God, maybe more like captivated or enthralled by God and lifted out of himself. He tried to describe this experience which happened in the summer of 1720 on the way home from mass at a spot still marked by a marble plaque. “In a moment of time” he said, he glimpsed the glory of God, the greatness of God, the goodness of God and the beauty of the living God, and all he could do was gasp with wonder. He was breathless with awe and wonder and reverence and the tears came flowing in streams. How else can you respond to an overwhelming experience of goodness and beauty? It touches your whole being. It’s no longer an “idea” we have about God or a study. It’s more real than all we call real. It possesses us.
We Passionists sometimes smile when people mistakenly call us the ‘passionate’ priests or brothers. But it’s a happy mistake. We should be happy to be called passionate; we should be proud to be passionate about our God, our vocation, and our ministry. We wear a heart badge, as you know. We call it the sign – a sign of many things!
It can be a sign of the heart of God, the love of God, the mercy of God. It can be a sign of the heart of Jesus (St. Margaret Mary died in 1690 and Paul of the Cross was born in 1694 and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was spreading everywhere in those years.) The late Professor Owen Chadwick of Cambridge University said: “No evidence shows a direct link between the Passionists’ heart upon the robe and the development of the cult of the Sacred Heart during those years but it is hard to think that no connection existed.” But above all, in Paul’s core experience, this sign represents our own hearts, a sign that we carve the name of Jesus on our hearts, remember in our hearts that we are loved, that we find God in our hearts and teach others to do the same. St. Vincent Strambi, also a Passionist, said that God raised up Paul of the Cross to teach people how to find God in their hearts. And that’s a marvellous summary of Paul’s life!
May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ be always in our hearts!