Notes on the Life of the Rev. Father Paul Cafaro, CSSR

I. His birth and infancy 5 II. His entrance into the seminary and his conduct while there 7 III. His conduct as priest and as pastor 11 IV. His resignation of the office of parish priest and his entrance into the Congregation 17 V. His zeal for the missions 21 VI. His love for mental prayer and his interior trials 27 VII. His love of obedience 36 VIII. His humility 41 IX. His mortification 46 X. His spirit of poverty 50 XI. His detachment in regard to his relatives and his charity towards his neighbor 53 XII. His purity 56 XIII. His devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ and to the Blessed Virgin 59 XIV. His constancy in his resolutions and his conformity to the good pleasure of God 61 XV. His death 65 WE do not precisely know when these Notes were written and published; we only know that in 1767 they were printed at the end of the volume entitled Way of Salvation. We think, however, that they must have appeared sooner, Father Cafaro having died in 1753. We here give some details that the author has omitted. Father Cafaro was received as a novice by St. Alphonsus, at Burra, October 25, 1741; he was then thirty-four years of age, and he lived nearly twelve years in the Congregation. The saint soon gave a signal proof of the esteem and confidence that he reposed in his new subject. In 1743, he chose him for his spiritual director, and made a vow to obey him in all things. At the General Chapter of 1749, Father Cafaro was appointed one of the Consultors-General. St. Alphonsus regarded him as one of the principal supports of his Congregation, and never deviated from his counsels; in Cafaro's last illness the saint did all he could to save his life; and in order to console himself for his "loss, it was while adoring the decrees of Providence that he composed his beautiful hymn on the Conformity to the will of God. (Villecourt, 1. 2, ch. 12, 17, 31, and 39.)-ED