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| 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.
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| The church of Our Lady of the Angels - Portiuncula, now enclosed in the Basilica |
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| Interior of the church. |
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