As Pope Francis entered his third week in a hospital battling pneumonia, tons of of pilgrims continued to make their solution to this hilltop town to wish on the tomb of St. Francis, the hometown medieval saint whom the pontiff selected as his papal name.
Groups from the United States, Ukraine and throughout Italy made their way through a town of grey and brown stone houses that look little modified from when the saint was born here greater than 840 years ago.
They said they were inspired by St. Francis’ love for the poor, peace and creation — all priorities for the pope, too, and the Franciscans, certainly one of the most important orders within the Catholic Church.
“The lifetime of St. Francis teaches the solution to holiness is giving up yourself, eliminating things that hold us back in our life here, and just offer ourselves to the Lord,” said the Rev. Paul Vu, who was visiting in early March with a bunch of fifty Vietnamese-American parishioners from Santa Ana, California.
Who was St. Francis?
In 1182, Francis was born to a wealthy family in Assisi, which rises above a fertile valley in central Italy. Praying in front of a crucifix, he heard a call to reform the church. He aspired to strip all the things all the way down to the essentials within the service of God.
The Santuario della Spogliazione, which accurately means stripping, is a sober stone church on the hillside. It marks the spot where he gave up even his clothes in front of his father, who disinherited him. St. Francis was accepted into the church by the bishop as an advocate of the poor and went on to found a spiritual order that’s still energetic globally today, the Franciscans.
For Assisi’s current bishop, the Rev. Domenico Sorrentino, St. Francis’ renunciation of fabric encumbrances also signaled his love of creation and of peace.
“Francis, stripping himself, got here back to nature in some sense. So we must receive nature as a present of God, and respect this gift,” Sorrentino told The Associated Press.
During the Crusades, St. Francis befriended a Muslim sultan — their exchanges are still seen for example of the type of interfaith dialogue that St. John Paul II promoted by gathering leaders of the key global religions in Assisi during his papacy.
“Assisi is the place to wish for peace on this planet and inside ourselves,” said Elizabeth Nuñez, a Passionist sister from Colombia who was there in pilgrimage on a recent weekend.
St. Francis and Pope Francis
After being elected, a pope chooses a reputation to adopt for his papacy. Jorge Mario Bergoglio picked Francis in 2013.
“He explained it in a quite simple way, that he selected Francis’ name because he’s the person of peace, of the poor, of brotherhood. The man who loves and respects creation,” said the Rev. Enzo Fortunato, who spent 30 years in Assisi and now leads the Vatican’s committee on World Children’s Day. “It’s a reputation that accommodates a life program.”
Several of the pope’s encyclicals — teaching documents for the church — pulled from Franciscan themes and quotes, including one about constructing a more inclusive church.
This 12 months will mark the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’ celebrated “canticle of creatures,” where he praises God for the sun, the moon and other natural elements he refers to as brothers and sisters.
Pope Francis used its title for an encyclical highlighting the importance of taking good care of the environment since it’s a present from God that humankind only gets to guard, not exploit.
Dora Pell, a 75-year-old pilgrim from England, went walking within the woods around Assisi beloved by St. Francis and called it as moving as sitting by his tomb within the Basilica of St. Francis on the sting of town.
“It’s only a spirituality that’s based on love and inclusiveness,” she said. “It’s seeing Christ in all places, in all the things and everybody.”
What else is Assisi famous for?
The basilica accommodates a cycle of greater than two dozen frescoes illustrating crucial moments in St. Francis’ life — including the “spogliazione.”
Painted by Giotto at the top of the thirteenth century, they marked a turning point in Western art. Their realism and careful rendering of space and depth went far beyond what was common within the Middle Ages and presaged the Renaissance.
They were spared destruction within the 1997 earthquake that hit the region, killing 4 people within the basilica itself.
Across town is the Basilica di Santa Chiara, dedicated to St. Clare, who embraced radical poverty to mimic St. Francis. He made available to her and the growing group of girls following her a neighborhood church — the start of the Poor Clares order, now present in 70 countries with 20,000 sisters.
In between the 2 churches, within the Santuario della Spogliazione, lies the Blessed Carlo Acutis, an Italian teen who died in 2006 and can turn out to be the church’s first millennial saint when canonized in April.
That makes Assisi “a condensation of holiness in a small town,” Fortunato said. And all of it links back to St. Francis’ selection 800 years ago.
“In the top, Francis is pure Gospel. He’s the excellent news,” Fortunato said.
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