Not far from where we pray is the Porziuncula, that little Chapel inside this great big Church. It was one of the first chapels that Francis and his brothers rebuilt and was the place where he chose to die. Which is why it has always been for me a prototype of what a church should be.
Unpretentious but washed in Grace, with a beauty which points beyond itself, its walls encrusted with the prayers and the tears of generations of folks like you and me.
I remember visiting the Porziuncula for the first time as a seminarian. And I remember an old woman kneeling on an ancient wooden kneeler, her rosary-clad hands emerging from the dark corner where she prayed. Her fingers praying the beads as she whispered to God the names of
grandchildren and the sick, elderly friends and the beggar on the front step. There she knelt in quiet conversation with the God who had drawn her to this place for decades on end. By her prayers and Saint Francis’ sweat, the words on the threshold to this shrine came true: HIC LOCUS SANCTUS EST. (This place is holy)
May our pilgrimage be graced by our prayers and the holy shrines where we will pray them. And when our week is done, may it be true that this place and each one of us is holy.
Unpretentious but washed in Grace, with a beauty which points beyond itself, its walls encrusted with the prayers and the tears of generations of folks like you and me.
I remember visiting the Porziuncula for the first time as a seminarian. And I remember an old woman kneeling on an ancient wooden kneeler, her rosary-clad hands emerging from the dark corner where she prayed. Her fingers praying the beads as she whispered to God the names of
May our pilgrimage be graced by our prayers and the holy shrines where we will pray them. And when our week is done, may it be true that this place and each one of us is holy.
