St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross are well-known in the Catholic world for founding the Discalced Carmelites, a reformed branch of the Carmelite Order. The members chose to go without shoes, wearing sandals or walking barefoot, as a sign of evangelical poverty and sacrifice. The word discalced means "shoeless": from Latindiscalceatus, dis- (expressing removal) + calceatus (from calceus ‘shoe’).
St. Francis of Assisi similarly founded an order that chose the poorest habit possible. Many Franciscans today continue that tradition by only wearing sandals.
Another saint who had a desire to be poor and to embrace any suffering that came his way was St. Paul of the Cross, who founded the Congregation of the Discalced Clerks of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Jesus Christ. They are more commonly known today as the Passionists.
Embracing the cross
St. Paul had an attraction to the cross and the Passion of Jesus at an early age and wanted to unite himself more fully to Jesus' suffering.
The Catholic Encyclopedia states, "From his earliest years the crucifix was his book, and the Crucified his model."
As he grew up, he felt an increasing desire to live a life consecrated to God.
In the 19th-century biography The Life of Blessed Paul of the Cross, the author explains how St. Paul revealed to his spiritual director at the time the "first lights which God imparted to him concerning the new congregation which he was to found, giving him sometimes a strong impulse to retire into solitude, sometimes a secret inspiration to assemble companions about him, at others a great desire to go barefoot and to wear a poor habit."
St. Paul would proceed to spend the rest of his life meditating on the Passion of Jesus, not afraid of embracing every hardship in order to be closer to Jesus on the cross. Going barefoot or wearing sandals was a necessary part of his religious life in order to more fully embrace the poverty of Jesus during his passion.
Many Passionists today continue this tradition, choosing to wear sandals, along with their simple black habit, honoring the sense of poverty that St. Paul of the Cross wanted to impart to his followers.
