Pope Benedict XVI

"Beauty... is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God Himself and His revelation."
(Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 35)

03 October 2011

Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi

The chapel of the Transitus is a simple stone building, which served as the infirmary for the first friary now with the basilica of Our Lady of the Angels.
Saint Francis died during the evening of October 3. The Church observes the feast of Saint Francis on October 4, the day of his death.

"Two years thereafter he fell sick unto death, and was fain to be carried into the Church of St Mary-of-the-Angels, that he might give up the breath of life in the same place where God had breathed into him the breath of the life of grace. Being there (laid on the earth, sprinkled with ashes, and covered with an old habit,) he exhorted the Friars to be poor and lowly, and to cleave to the faith of the Holy Church of Rome. (He then caused the Gospel of St John to be read from the words Now before the feast of the Passover to the end,) after which he began to recite the 141st Psalm: I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and in uttering the words, the righteous wait for me, till Thou deal bountifully with me, he gave up the ghost... "

This human and liturgical event is solemnly remembered each year by Franciscans, to honour their holy Father's entrance into the joy of being with the Most Blessed Trinity.
O God, you granted our blessed Father Francis the reward of everlasting joy: 
grant that we, who celebrate the memory of his death,
may at last come to the same eternal joy; 
through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The church of Our Lady of the Angels - Portiuncula, now enclosed in the Basilica
Interior of the church.

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