Today April 19

Today we revisit a saint we studied last October 19th, his other feast day. (Actually, he also has April 28th as another feast day, but that's also in the old calendar.) St. Paul of the Cross, with his ever-faithful sidekick and brother, John the Baptist, founded the Passionist Order. In light of the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech, and the issues of gun control -- and the larger issue of violence itself -- I think it's significant that after a brief stint in the Italian army (and seeing some action), Paul hung up his arms for good. As Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians said: "I will fight no more forever." (Many saints find their faith incompatible with bearing arms.) For years he was at sea, so to speak, trying to decide what to do. The answer finally came to him (not from anything he himself did, although he was open to hearing it) in a vision. In it he saw a beautiful lady in black with a cross and the name of Jesus in white lettering and she asked him to start an order of priests whose mission should be centered on the cross and passion of Christ. And to this day, priests in this preaching (and missionary) order take their vows shouldering a life-size cross. (It's impressive to see.) Passionists are famous for their parish missions (kind of like traveling Catholic revivals) and now there are groups of nuns as well. (Paul worked hard to establish them and lived to see their rule approved.)

Even though he never left his little corner of Italy, he had a great desire to see England re-evangelized: "England is always before my eyes," he said, "And if ever again it becomes Catholic the benefit to the church will be immeasurable." He would be gratified to see not only the reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy (in 1850) and the removal of England's status as a "mission country," but the interesting result of a recent poll that shows the number of Catholics exceeding those of the Church of England for the first time in 400 years or so.