Assisi: Portiuncula

  

The huge cathedral of St. Mary of the Angels was built to house the Portiuncula, the birthplace of the Franciscan order, and the last resting place of St. Francis. Below is Edward Hutton's moving description of the death of St. Francis.

Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Portiuncula, was, S. Bonaventura tells us, the spot on earth most beloved by S. Francis. Today the half-industrialized village which bears this name, in the plain about two miles below Assisi, close to the railway station, will, it may be, disappoint the traveller. In the midst of rather squalid surroundings he sees an enormous basilica, originally of the sixteenth century, under a dome which is said to have been designed by Vignola and which covers like a casket the little sacred chapel, the Portiuncula. But in the time of S. Francis the valley hereabouts was wooded and the little chapel of the Portiuncula was lonely among the trees, and until some wattle huts were built about it by his companions, nothing encroached upon its solitude….

As to S. Francis’s death: he had for long lain sick in the bishop’s palace within the walls of Assisi, but presently he asked to be borne to S. Mary of the Little Portion that he might yield up the breath of life in the place he had so much loved and in which he had received the breath of grace. When he had been borne thither, he lay on the ground, here in what is now the Transito chapel, his habit laid aside, naked in honour of Lady Poverty, while his companions wept, and one of them, divining his wish, took a habit with the cord and brought it, saying, “There I lend thee as unto a beggar and do thou receive them under holy obedience.” And at this he rejoiced, for in his zeal for poverty he was minded to possess not even a habit unless it were lent him by another. As at the outset of his conversion he had stood naked before the bishop, as in the ending of his life he was minded to quit the world naked. He recommended to his brethren the beloved Portiuncula. “This place is holy,” he told them, “hold it ever in veneration and never abandon it. If you are driven out by one door, return by another, for it is here the Lord has multiplied us and has shown us His Light and poured out His love in our hearts.”

 

He did not forget Sister Clare and sent her a message forbidding her to give way to sadness and promising that she and her daughters should see him again, which came to pass when his body was borne to Assisi by way of San Damiano. He remembered, too, the noble Roman Lady “Frate Jacoba”, as he called her. She too would be sad to learn that he had left the world without warning her, and he was already dictating a letter to her when the noise of a cavalcade was heard and the Lady Jacoba was herself come from Rome with her two sons. “the Lord be praised,” he said, “let the door be opened for the Rule is not for Brother Jacoba.” She had come furnished with all that was needed for the burial of the Poverello, a veil for his face, a cushion for his head, a sheet of haircloth for his body and wax for the funeral ceremonies. She had brought, too, some of the sweetmeats made of almonds which he loved. * He could but taste it; it was Bernard of Quintavalle, his first companion, who ate it.

 

Then turning to those about him, he told them to lay him on the ground and after he was dead to let him lie there for the space in which one may gently walk a mile. As his desire the Canticle of the Sun was constantly heard in the hut with the verse in praise of our sister the Death of the body which he had so recently made. He asked for bread, and having blessed it, distributed it to the brethren in imitation of Christ at the Last Supper.

 

The next day, his last, the Passion according to St. John was read to him, and at dusk of October 3, 1226, she to whom no one willingly opens the door entered. He saw her, received her courteously, “Be welcome, my Sister Death.” They placed him on the ground, ashes on his head, ashes and dust. Then with failing voice he intoned a Psalm with those about him: Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi: “Bring my soul out of prison that I may give thanks unto thy name…. **

 

Evening had stolen into the hut. There was a great silence. He seemed to be sleeping.

 

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*Note. She was a Frangipani and the sweetmeat bears her name to this day.

**Note. Psalm 141 (A.V. 142). 

 

Edward Hutton: Assisi and Umbria Revisited, London, 1953. Pp. 23,  28-30.