St. Paul of the Cross was born in 1694 in Ovada, Italy. Paul Daneo was the oldest son of a merchant family and was brought up in the Catholic Faith. During his teenage years his parents began to encourage him to get married and take over the family business, but Paul had become inwardly captivated by the Cross of Christ and wanted to devote his life to Jesus through prayer and preaching.
At the age of 21, Paul joined a crusade against the Turks, but realized that this was not the way God wanted him to serve when he experienced the violence and ruthlessness of war. Paul began to realize that God wanted him to join a completely different type of crusade, a crusade for souls.
He returned to his hometown and in 1720, he spoke to the local bishop and asked if he could be allowed to live as a hermit. The bishop granted his permission and Paul retired to one of the town's churches. To help support himself, Paul began to 
teach religion to the town's children. Adults began to realize his holiness and began to come to him for guidance. During his time living at this church and teaching, he began to develop a Rule which governed how he prayed, fasted, exercised, and practiced spiritual disciplines, pennances and charity.
In 1721, Paul went to Rome to get his Rule approved by the Vatican. He was not able to accomplish this goal because he was turned away by the guards as a beggar. As Paul began his journey back to the church he was living at, he began to gather followers. This group was the foundation of the Passionist order, and the Rule that Paul wrote was finally approved in 1769.
Paul was ordained to the priesthood in 1734, and soon began to put all his time and energy into preaching throughout Central Italy. Paul helped people to learn how to pray and meditate upon the suffering and death of Jesus, and how to turn the sufferings of their own lives to the Glory of God. Paul died in 1775, was canonized in 1867 by Pope Pius IX.
