I am sending the following one is
from the MONKROCK New Monastic Community – Oblates of the Last Martyrdom Compiled,
arranged and written by Kevin Francis Bernadette Clay. It is a great joy to be Franciscans as the
name itself denotes specific values: Centrality of Jesus’ life and mission,
lived through Voluntary poverty in Fraternal love within the fraternity,
society and with the whole creation.
May God bless you and your genuine Franciscan
radicalism!
Your brother
Nithiya ofm.cap
Coordinator, Association of Franciscan Families of
India – AFFI
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Leader: Every year on the 3rd of October, on the evening before the feast
day of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4th), Christians everywhere solemnly
commemorate the transitus of this “holy fool” for Christ (Cf. 1 Cor. 4:10) –
the passing of our Seraphic father’s soul from earth to heaven, which took
place at sunset on Saturday October 3rd, 1226.
Leader: “We adore you, Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all your churches in
the whole world, and we bless you.”
All: “Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”
[All making the Sign of the
Cross]
Leader: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
All: Amen.
Leader: Let us pray.
All: “Almighty, eternal, just and merciful God, give us the grace to do
for you alone what we know you want us to do and desire what pleases you.
Inwardly cleansed, interiorly enlightened and inflamed by the fire of the Holy
Spirit, may we be able to follow in the footprints of your beloved Son, our
Lord Jesus Christ, and by your grace alone, may we make our way to you, Most
High, who live and rule in perfect Trinity and simple Unity, and glorified God
almighty, forever and ever. Amen.”
From
the Life of St. Francis of Assisi
Leader: On Saturday evening, October 3rd, 1226, the Little Poor Man of
Assisi, knowing that Sister Death was at hand, asked to be placed naked on the
bare ground. The grieving brothers consented to his wish, and he rested his
hand over his chest to hide its wound from view.
Then one of his companions, by Divine Inspiration, loaned him his own tunic,
gently placing it over Francis. This delighted the saint, for now he was truly
Christ’s beggar, clothed in a borrowed habit. He was content to die in this
perfect embrace of Lady Poverty.
In the same way that he had begun his religious life divesting himself of his
clothing before the bishop, he wished to finish his life despoiled of
everything, in imitation of his crucified Master. Francis, insofar as he was
able, broke out in praise to Christ with a psalm:
All: Hear, O Lord, my prayer: in your faithfulness listen to my
pleading; answer me in your justice. Do not enter into judgment with your
servant; before you no living being can be just. The enemy has pursued me; they
have crushed my life to the ground. They have left me in darkness like those
long dead. My spirit is faint within me; my heart is dismayed. I remember the
days of old; I ponder all your deeds; the works of your hands I recall. I
stretch out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land.
Hasten to answer me, Lord; for my spirit fails me. Do not hide your face from
me, lest I become like those descending to the pit. At dawn let me hear of your
kindness, for in you I trust. Show me the path I should walk, for to you I
entrust my life. Rescue me, Lord, from my foes, for in you I hope. Teach me to
do your will, for you are my God. May your kind spirit guide me on ground that
is level. For your name’s sake, Lord, give me life; in your justice lead me out
of distress. In your kindness put an end to my foes; destroy all who attack me,
for I am your servant. [Psalm 143/142]
Leader: Francis likewise invited all creatures to praise God, and with the
words he had previously composed, he exhorted them to sing:
All: “Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord! All praise is yours, all
glory, all honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.”
“Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord
Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is
beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the
likeness. Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the
heavens you have made them bright, precious and beautiful.”
“Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and
all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance. Be praised,
my Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious,
and pure. Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten
the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong. Be praised,
my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces
various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.”
“Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those
who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for by you,
Most High, they will be crowned. Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily
Death, from whose embrace no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in
mortal sin! Happy those she finds doing your most holy will. The second death
can do no harm to them. Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks, and serve
him with great humility.” (The Canticle of Brother Sun: “Praise of the
Creatures”)
An
Exhortation to the Brothers & Sisters of Penance
Leader: As the final moments drew near, Francis invited the brothers to
come closer, and softening his departure with consoling words, he encouraged
them with fatherly affection to love God. He entreated them not to abandon the
way of poverty, and he exhorted them to endure patiently the trials and
tribulations that the Order would face in the future without him. Most
importantly, he enjoined them to remain faithful to Holy Mother Church, giving
precedence to the Holy Gospels before all else.
Reader: A reading from the Letter of St. Francis to All the Faithful: An
Exhortation to the Brothers & Sisters of Penance
Concerning Those Who Do Penance
All who love the Lord with their whole heart, with their whole soul and mind,
with all their strength, (cf. Mk 12:30) and love their neighbors as themselves
(cf. Mt 22:39) and hate their bodies with their vices and sins, and receive the
Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and produce worthy fruits of penance.
Oh, how happy and blessed are these men and women when they do these things and
persevere in doing them, because “the spirit of the Lord will rest upon them” (cf.
Is 11:2) and he will make “his home and dwelling among them,” (cf. Jn 14:23),
and they are the sons of the heavenly Father (cf. Mt 5:45), whose works they
do, and they are the spouses, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ
(cf. Mt 12:50).
We are spouses, when by the Holy Spirit, the faithful soul is united with our
Lord Jesus Christ; we are brothers to Him when we fulfill the will of the
Father who is in heaven (Mt 12:50). We are mothers, when we carry him in our
heart and body (cf. 1 Cor 6:20) through divine love and a pure and sincere
conscience; we give birth to him through a holy life, which must give light to
others by example (cf. Mt 5:16).
Oh, how glorious it is to have a great and holy Father in heaven! Oh how
glorious it is to have such a beautiful and admirable Spouse, the Holy
Paraclete! Oh, how glorious it is to have such a Brother and such a Son, loved,
beloved, humble, peaceful, sweet, lovable, and desirable above all: Our Lord
Jesus Christ, who gave up his life for his sheep (cf. Jn 10:15) and prayed to
the Father saying:
“Oh holy Father, protect them with your name (cf. Jn 17:11) whom you gave me
out of the world. I entrusted to them the message you entrusted to me and they
received it. They have known that in truth I came from you, they have believed
that it was you who sent me. For these I pray, not for the world (cf. Jn 17:9).
Bless and consecrate them, and I consecrate myself for their sakes. I do not
pray for them alone; I pray also for those who will believe in me through their
word (cf. Jn 17:20) that they may be holy by being one as we are (cf. Jn
17:11). And I desire, Father, to have them in my company where I am to see this
glory of mine in your kingdom” (cf. Jn 17:6-24). Amen.
Concerning Those Who Do Not Do Penance
But all those men and women who are not doing penance and do not receive the
Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and live in vices and sin and yield to
evil concupiscence and to the wicked desires of the flesh, and do not observe
what they have promised to the Lord, and are slaves to the world, in their
bodies, by carnal desires and the anxieties and cares of this life (cf. Jn
8:41):
These are blind, because they do not see the true light, our Lord Jesus Christ;
they do not have spiritual wisdom because they do not have the Son of God who
is the true wisdom of the Father. Concerning them, it is said, “Their skill was
swallowed up” (Ps 107:27) and “cursed are those who turn away from your
commands” (Ps 119:21). They see and acknowledge, they know and do bad things
and knowingly destroy their own souls.
See, you who are blind, deceived by your enemies, the world, the flesh and the
devil, for it is pleasant to the body to commit sin and it is bitter to make it
serve God because all vices and sins come out and “proceed from the heart of
man” as the Lord says in the Gospel (cf. Mt 7:21). And you have nothing in this
world and in the next, and you thought you would possess the vanities of this
world for a long time.
But you have been deceived, for the day and the hour will come to which you
give no thought and which you do not know and of which you are ignorant. The
body grows infirm, death approaches, and so it dies a bitter death, and no
matter where or when or how man dies, in the guilt of sin, without penance or
satisfaction, though he can make satisfaction but does not do it.
The devil snatches the soul from his body with such anguish and tribulation
that no one can know it except he who endures it, and all the talents and power
and “knowledge and wisdom” (2 Chr 1:17) which they thought they had will be
taken away from them (cf. Lk. 8:18; Mk. 4:25), and they leave their goods to
relatives and friends who take and divide them and say afterwards, “Cursed be
his soul because he could have given us more, he could have acquired more than
he did.” The worms eat up the body and so they have lost body and soul during
this short earthly life and will go into the inferno where they will suffer
torture without end.
All those into whose hands this letter shall have come we ask in the charity
that is God (cf. 1 Jn 4:17) to accept kindly and with divine love the fragrant
words of our Lord Jesus Christ quoted above. And let those who do not know how
to read have them read to them. And may they keep them in their mind and carry
them out, in a holy manner to the end, because they are “spirit and life” (Jn
6:64). And those who will not do this will have to render “an account on the
day of judgment” (cf. Mt 12:36) before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ
(cf. Rom 14:10).
The
Gospel
Leader: Francis then stretched his hands over the brothers in the form of
a cross – a symbol that he loved so much – and gave his blessings to all his
followers, both present and absent, in the power and in the name of the
Crucified. With this sweet admonition, this dearly beloved to God, asked that
the book of the Gospels be brought to him and that the passage in the Gospel of
St. John be read. [John 13: 1-17]
[All Stand]
Reader: A reading from the holy Gospel according to St. John.
[While making the Sign of
the Cross with thumb on one’s forehead, lips, and heart]
All: Glory to you, O Lord.
Reader: Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his
hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own
who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, when the
devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to
betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,
and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid
aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into
a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel
with which he was girded.
He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”
Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you
will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus
answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Simon Peter said
to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to
him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is
clean all over; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For he knew who was to
betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.”
When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place,
he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and
Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have
washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given
you as example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I
say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent
greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you
do them.”
Reader: The Gospel of the Lord.
All: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
The
Transitus
Leader: Finally, when all God’s mysteries had been accomplished in him,
Francis, who had also loved his own to the end, in the company of his grieving
companions, then gently passed from this world into the Heavenly Kingdom, as
his holy soul was freed from his body and assumed into the eternal beatitude of
God’s glory.
All: [Pause]
Leader: His final wish was that he would be sprinkled with ashes, to
symbolize the dust and ashes to which his body would return. Francis died at
the age of 44, twenty years after his conversion in 1206, having borne the
Stigmata for two years.
All: O most holy soul, at your departure the heavenly host comes to meet you,
the angelic choir rejoices and the glorious Trinity welcomes you, saying:
“Remain with us forever.”
Leader: Francis, poor and humble, enters heaven as a rich man.
All: He is honored with the hymns of the saints.
Leader: “Let us, brothers and sisters, look to the Good Shepherd who suffered
the passion of the Cross to save his sheep. The sheep of the Lord followed him
in tribulation and persecution, in insult and hunger, in infirmity and
temptation, and in everything else, and they have received everlasting life
from the Lord because of these things. Therefore, it is a great shame for us,
servants of God, that while the saints actually did such things, we wish to
receive glory and honor by merely recounting their deeds.”
[Striking their chest once,
then repeating the Jesus Prayer]
* As many times as desired
(Recommended : 33 or 100)
All: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
+
Litany of St. Francis of Assisi
Leader: By your example may we learn
that life does not consist in the pursuit of wealth or in the abundance of
possessions. All: St. Francis, pray for us.
Leader: By your single-minded
dedication to Christ help us to walk that narrow way that leads to
Christ. All: St. Francis, pray for us.
Leader: By your appreciation of God's
wonderful creation, help us to appreciate God's world without defacing or
spoiling it. All: St. Francis, pray for us.
Leader: By your endless praises to your
heavenly Father, help us to live in continual thanks and praise for God's
bounty. All: St. Francis, pray for us.
Leader: By your humility, help us to
know that it is only when we are humble that God can come to us. All: St. Francis, pray for us.
Leader: By your joy even in suffering,
help us in our times of trial to be joyful in the Lord. All: St. Francis, pray for us.
Leader: By your holy death, help us to
live each day as our last and to welcome Sister Death at our end. All: St. Francis, pray for us.
Leader: Praise and bless my Lord, and
give thanks and serve him with great humility. All: Amen.
Leader: St. Francis, the Little Poor
Man of Assisi, All: Pray for us!
Leader: Our Mother of Perpetual Help,
The Refuge and The Hope of Sinners, All: Pray for us!
Leader: Our Lord Jesus Christ, Great
High Priest and King of Divine Mercy, All: Save us!
The
Call
[Facing the San Damiano
crucifix icon]
Leader: It was at the foot of the cross Francis received his mission from
our Lord Jesus Christ, “Rebuild my Church, which is falling to ruins.” Knowing
that we ourselves are the “living stones” (1 Pt. 2:5) which make up God’s
house, let us faithfully respond to this call, committing ourselves, as
brothers and sisters of penance, to ongoing conversion for the renewal of the
Church and the restoration of Christ’s social Kingship – the culture of life,
the civilization of love.
All: “I am the herald of the Great King!”
Leader: “I have seen a great multitude of people coming to us and wishing
to associate with us in our habit of holy conduct and our rule for a blessed
religious life. Why, there is still in my ears the sound of them going and
coming at the order of holy obedience. I have seen the roads so as to say of
every nation coming together hereabouts, filled with the multitude of them.”
All: “I wish that my brothers and sisters would show themselves to be
children of the same mother.”
Leader: Let us pray:
All: “Most high, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart and
give me, Lord, a correct faith, a certain hope, a perfect charity, sense and
knowledge, so that I may carry out your holy and true command.”
Leader: “Dear brothers and sisters, let us consider our vocation, and how
God, in his great mercy, called us not only for our salvation but for that of
many; and to this end we are to go through the world exhorting all men and
women by our example as well as by our words to do penance for their sins, and
to live keeping in mind the commandments of God. Fear not because you appear
little and mean and ignorant, but preach penance courageously, trusting that
the Lord, who conquered the world, will speak through you and in you by the
power of his Spirit. Preach the gospel in season and out; and if necessary, use
words. Sanctify yourself, and you sanctify society. For we have been called to
heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have
lost their way. Therefore, let us begin, brothers and sisters, to serve the
Lord our God, for up to now we have made little or no progress.”
All: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: Where there is hatred,
let me sow love; Where there is discord, harmony; Where there is injury,
pardon; Where there is error, truth; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there
is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek: To be consoled as to console;
to be loved, as to love. For, it is in giving, that we receive; It is in
forgetting self, that we find ourselves; It is in pardoning, that we are
pardoned; And it is in dying, that we are born into eternal life.”
Leader: “Let us desire nothing else, let nothing else please us and cause
us delight except our Creator and Redeemer, the one, true God, who is the
fullness of good, the true and supreme Good who alone is merciful and gentle,
delectable and sweet, who alone is holy, just, and true, who alone is kind,
innocent, and pure, from whom and through whom is all pardon, all grace, and
all glory of the penitent and the just, and of the blessed who rejoice together
in heaven. Therefore, let nothing hinder us, nothing separate us, and nothing
come between us. Let all of us, wherever we are, in every place, at every hour,
at every time of the day, believe truly and humbly and keep ever in our hearts
all love, honor, praise, blessing, glory, and exaltation for the Creator and
Savior of all who believe in him and who is without beginning and without end,
unchangeable, blessed, and totally desirable above all else forever.”
All: “My God, and my all!”
Conclusion
Leader: Eternal Father, on this day you granted the reward of eternal
salvation to our patron and father Francis. Mercifully grant that we who
celebrate with tender devotion the memory of his death may have the joy of
sharing in his blessing from you.
O God, by whose gift Saint Francis was conformed to Christ in poverty and
humility, grant that, by walking in Francis’ footsteps, we may follow your Son,
and, through joyful charity, come to be united with you. Through our Lord Jesus
Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
All: Amen.
Leader: “Let us bless our Lord and God, living and true, to him we must
attribute all praise, glory, honor, blessing, and every good thing for ever and
ever.”
All: Thanks be to God.
Blessing
Leader: “May the God of peace himself perfect us in holiness, and may he
preserve us whole and entire, spirit, soul, and body, free from all sin at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
[All making the Sign of the
Cross]
Leader: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
All: Amen.
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