Growing up in the chaos of the Peninsular War in Spain, he followed both the life of a hermit and of a missionary preacher in the rural regions of Catalonia.

One of his spiritual followers was his great-niece, Teresa of Jesus Jornet, who founded a religious congregation of Carmelite sisters dedicated to caring for the poor aged.

He was born on 29 December 1811 in Aitona, Lerida, the 7th of the nine children of Joseph Palau and Maria Antònia Quer, who were fervent royalists and devoted Catholics.

He was born into a period of widespread hunger and chaos due to the devastation wrought by the French invasion of Spain, which had reached the region the previous year.

[2] The Spanish government abolished religious communities at that point and Palau continued his life of asceticism in his hometown, where he alternated between solitude and apostolic activities.

Due both to his popularity and conflict with Church authorities, however, the government there briefly denied him a license to hear confessions and conduct religious services.

Palau felt that his religious activities would mark him with the Liberal authorities, so on 21 July he decided to cross the Pyrenees to live in exile in France.

He then moved to the region of Montauban, where he continued to live his solitary life in the Grotto of the Holy Cross in Livron, and then in Cambayrac.

He began to inspire groups of men and women to live similar lifestyles of solitude, giving them direction in their quest.

It was during this period that he came to know Juana Gratias, who later became a pivotal figure in his founding of congregations of Carmelite Tertiary Brothers and Sisters.

[3] Due to the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1848, Palau obtained a parcel of land in Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet, near Perpignan, where he withdrew for greater solitude.

Unable to live again with his Carmelite brothers, Palau made himself available to the Archbishop of Barcelona, Josep-Domènec Costa i Borràs, who appointed him as the spiritual director of the local seminarians.

He found an islet, a towering rock, El Vedra, near Ibiza and, needing solitude, he used to retire and pray there, seeking God's will.

[5] While fully immersed in his apostolic and foundational work, in 1872 with an outbreak of typhus Palau's help was requested by the Sisters he had founded at the hospital they operated in Peralta de Calasanz, Huesca.

[6] With the opening of the cause for the beatification of Palau, on 13 December 1947, his remains were moved from the public cemetery in Tarragona to the chapel of the motherhouse of the Teresian Carmelite Missionaries whom he had founded.

He spent his life in spreading the Gospel among his brothers and sisters and in fostering among them a vivid awareness of their membership in the mystical body of Christ.

Grant Oh Lord, that the honor which your church confers on him may help to make all men and women one in God's people and through his intercession give us the special grace which we now ask.