The Passionists

The full title of the Passionist institute is: The Congregation of Discalced Clerks of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

See also:
THE PASSION OF CHRIST IN THE GOSPELS

DEVOTION TO THE PASSION OF CHRIST

Researched by: Jean-Claude Barros

Foundation
The founder was St. Paul of the Cross, called in the world Paul Francis Danei. The saint was born 3 Jan., 1694, at Ovada, a small town in the then Republic of Genoa. He spent his youth at Castellazzo, in Lombardy, where his parents had taken up their residence when Paul was only ten years old. This was his father's native place. It is to Castellazo we have to turn our thoughts for the beginnings of the Passionist Congregation. There Paul received his inspirations concerning the work for which God destined him. There he was clothed by his bishop in the habit of the Passion, and there wrote the Rules of the new institute.

The Rules were written by St. Paul while yet a layman and before he assembled companions to form a community. He narrates, in a statement written in obedience to his confessor, how Our Lord inspired him with the design of founding the congregation, and how he wrote the Rules and Constitutions. "I began", he says, "to write this holy rule on the second of December in the year 1720, and I finished it on the seventh of the same month. And be it known that when I was writing, I went on as quickly as if somebody in a professor's chair were there dictating to me. I felt the words come from my heart" (see "Life of St. Paul of the Cross", II, v, Oratorian Series). In 1725 when on a visit to Rome with his brother John Baptist, his constant companion and co-operator in the foundation of the institute, Paul received from Benedict XIII vivae vocis oraculo, permission to form a congregation according to these Rules. The same pope ordained the two brothers in the Vatican basilica 7 June, 1727. After serving for a time in the hospital of St. Gallicano they left Rome with permission of the Holy Father and went to Mount Argentaro, where they established the first house of the institute. They took up their abode in a small hermitage near the summit of the mount, to which was attached a chapel dedicated to St. Anthony. They were soon joined by three companions, one of whom was a priest, and the observance of community life according to the rules began there and is continued there to the present day. This was the cradle of the congregation, and we may date the foundation of the Passionists from this time.

Continuation...