THE EUCHARIST IN SAINT PAUL OF THE CROSS Rev. Divo Barsotti

THE EUCHARIST IN SAINT PAUL OF THE CROSS Rev. Divo Barsotti INTRODUCTION It is very important to study the process of development of a doctrine which often also tells us of the process involved in a person’s sanctity. And so it is in St. Paul of the Cross. Was there really a process? It is exactly this which is seen in the life of every saint: the initial grace already contains in germ the development of future sanctity. The Diary of St. Paul of the Cross remains the basic document for every study of paulacrucian spirituality. In any case, it is evident that the extraordinary testimony of forty days, while, on the one hand, very rich for a theological analysis in pointing out reasons, on the other, it could induce one who doesn’t know the Letters and treatise on Mystical Death to err in his conclusions. One could in fact insist on certain reasons which the Saint borrows from his preferred authors and which fall along the way, or at least are not as evident as they seem to be in the Diary. Other reasons, on the contrary, which are explicit and insistently emphasized in the Diary, are not as explicit in his subsequent writings, but nevertheless have not lost for St. Paul of the Cross their fundamental importance and could easily be presumed.read...