The Record presents a three-part series of travel features by Bridget Spinks who travelled to Assisi, Florence and Siena courtesy of Harvest Pilgrimages
n the Umbrian region of northern Italy is Assisi: a pilgrimage site of prayer and peace that draws five million people a year.
There are numerous convents and monasteries in this holy, hilltop city, including the Convent of St Francis that houses 60 conventual Franciscan Friars from 18 countries.
Five months after the Chernobyl disaster and during the Cold War, Assisi was the place where Pope John Paul II gathered 160 religious leaders from various faiths for the first World Day of Prayer for Peace on 27 October 1986.
In an address to the representatives of the Christian Churches and ecclesial communities gathered on that day, the late Pope said he chose Assisi to mark the occasion because of the “holy man venerated here – Saint Francis – known and revered by so many throughout the world as a symbol of peace, reconciliation and brotherhood”.
On this day, the Pontiff made three addresses: one at the Church of St Mary and the Angels (Santa Maria degli Angeli), another at the Cathedral of St Rufinus (San Rufino) and a third at the Basilica of St Francis (San Francesco).
These churches are all within easy walking distance along the narrow paths that weave through the town.
The Basilica of St Francis, like a bookend, marks one end of town, while the Basilica of St Clare (Santa Chiara) marks the other, anchoring the town to its spiritual heritage. Pilgrims can venerate the remains of both these saints in the crypt in their respective Basilica.
In the Basilica of St Mary and the Angels, Pope John Paul II stated that the day of the Prayer for Peace was a day “for prayer, for what goes together with prayer: silence, pilgrimage and fasting”.
“By abstaining from food we shall become more conscious of the universal need for penance and inner transformation,” he said.
Like the 12th century saint who draws millions to Assisi, who started out in this life as the son of a cloth merchant before radically abandoning wealth and riches for a life of asceticism, Pope John Paul II was recognising the power of prayer and fasting as the means to peace.
At 20, Francis took part in a military campaign against the neighbouring town of Perugia.
But not long after that, he came to abandon the ways of the world and “a slow process of spiritual conversion began within him,” Pope Benedict stated in a General Audience earlier this year.
For instance, one day when St Francis was mounted on his horse, he passed a leper. Instead of throwing the leper a coin, Francis dismounted and hugged him.
Later, in the Church of St Damian (San Damiano), St Francis heard the voice of Christ on the Cross saying, “Go, Francis, and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin”.
After hearing these words, St Francis literally began to repair the Church of St Damian, after which he lived the life of a hermit.
But the call to repair the Church was a symbol of a much deeper call to renew Christ’s own Church, as Pope Benedict XVI said, “with her radicality of faith and her loving enthusiasm for Christ”.
A few years later, Pope Innocent III had a dream in which he saw the Basilica of St John Lateran collapsing, and there was a religious brother supporting the church on his shoulders.
But in 1208, while listening to St Matthew’s account of Jesus’ discourse to the apostles whom he sent out on mission, Francis felt called to live in poverty and dedicate himself to preaching, Pope Benedict said in his address this year.
In 1209, St Francis and a band of 12 or 13 companions went to Rome to Pope Innocent III for approval of the Forma Vita: a collection of Gospel texts that Francis and his companions referred to, which included a text on the Gospel of the mission of the apostles as heard by Francis in the Portiuncula on 24 February 1208.
Pope Innocent III gave verbal approval to Francis, gave them a small tonsure and, as early sources state, they preferred to be known as “penitents originally from the city of Assisi”.
In communion with the Church in Rome, St Francis and his followers went on mission to preach. They went to various European countries, Morocco and at the time of the Crusades, Francis met with a Muslim Sultan and obtained permission to visit the Holy Land.
The fruit of this visitation was that the Franciscans became and still are the Custodians of the Holy Land.
Two years before he died, St Francis received the Stigmata during a vision of the Crucified Lord in the form of a seraph.
On display in the Basilica of Santa Chiara are several relics of this pair of saints, including a small leather-soled shoe with flexible upper part in kid leather, which tradition holds was made by St Clare.
St Francis, a “giant of holiness” as Pope Benedict XVI called him earlier this year, continues to exert power in the town where his body is buried: Assisi.
Several years before Pope John Paul II held the World Day of Prayer in Assisi, he visited the city in 1978 and said he came to the city to “witness to that surprising holiness that passed here like a great breath of the Spirit”.
“A breath in which St Francis of Assisi participated, as well as his spiritual sister St Clare and so many other saints born from their evangelical spirituality,” he said.
Places to visit
– Go to the Basilica of San Francesco to visit and pray at St Francis’s tomb in the crypt. In the upper part of the Basilica you can listen to an audio guide of the Giotto frescoes and tour the Church. The frescoes on the life of St Francis line the walls of the upper Basilica.
– Go to the Basilica of Santa Chiara. As you enter, you will also see the Cross of San Damiano from which Christ spoke to St Francis and called him to repair His church which was falling into ruin. Go downstairs and here, in the crypt you can visit the tomb of St Clare and possibly catch the scent of sweet perfume as you pray.
While downstairs, you will also see some relics of St Francis and St Clare – who founded the women’s Religious Order the Poor Clares.
– Go up Monte Subiaso, one of the Apennine mountains in the province of Perugia, to see where St Francis preached to the birds.
– Go to the Church of San Damiano to see where St Francis wrote the Canticle of the Creatures and to see St Clare’s convent and to see where the Cross of San Damiano originally was.
– Visit the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli (near the train station). Inside is the Portiuncula – the original, restored chapel, which St Francis used in the early days of the order in 1209.
Fast facts
– St Francis was born in 1181 in Assisi, died in
1226 and was canonised in 1228.
– St Clare was born in 1194, died in 1253 and was
canonised in 1255.
– St Francis is a patron saint of Italy.