Unprecedented exhibition of San Francisco relic attracts crowds in jubilee year

“The Jubilee Year offers us the opportunity to be more than a tourist…to be a pilgrim, joining the millions of pilgrims expected in Assisi for the Jubilee, with even more pilgrims traveling to Franciscan churches around the world,” explained Father John Puodziunas, OFM, the new Franciscan Commissioner of the U.S. Holy Land based in Washington. “The pilgrim returns transformed… he sees himself, his world, God differently.”

A must-visit is the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, a vast church overlooking his Umbrian hometown. In the crypt, pilgrims rest their hands on the saint’s Neo-Romanesque tomb, where a votive lamp softly illuminates the dark space and only the shuffle of footsteps breaks the silence. In February and March, many saw his skeletal remains in the basilica, displayed for the first time in honor of the jubilee year. Vatican News estimates that 400,000 people came to pay their respects and venerate the relics of this extraordinary Christian saint.

His epic life is told through the artistic genius of Giotto in frescoes painted above the crypt in the upper basilica: Francis hears the voice of Christ as he prays before the cross of Saint Damian; his giving up all his clothes and worldly possessions and returning them to his rich father; his meeting with Pope Innocent III; his creation of the first Christian nativity scene in Greccio; Francis preaching the Gospel to the birds; Francisco receives the stigmata.

Father David Wathen, OFM, also of the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, is a veteran guide who has led more than 200 pilgrimages to the Holy Land, but made a detour to Italy this year in honor of the jubilee. Wathen celebrated Mass with 10 pilgrims from around the country in April at the Portiuncula, the small chapel where St. Francis answered Christ’s call: “Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruin…” Francis responded by renouncing his family’s wealth and status and embracing a life of chastity, poverty and obedience with his small group of brothers. Today there are 35 thousand Franciscan friars around the world spread across 100 countries.

Portiuncula became the spiritual center of the new Franciscan community and the place where Francis welcomed the young woman who would become Saint Clare of Assisi, founder of the Poor Clares. Today the Porciuncula, housed within the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria dos Anjos, is another important pilgrimage site, on the outskirts of Assisi. A bronze statue of Francis in the basilica’s rose garden commemorates his conversations with turtle doves, inviting them to join him in worshiping the Lord. Today, doves still nest in the statue’s hands while birdsong creates a symphony of praise. It was also in this garden that Saint Francis, in an act of penance, rolled through the thorn bushes, which mysteriously transformed into dog roses upon contact with his body. This hybrid rose variety still blooms centuries later.

“A pilgrim experiences the spirituality of space, where the place… a chapel, a cave, a town square, a garden… speaks to the individual’s inner longings. In Assisi, we not only meet Francis, but we enter into his personal encounter with God formed in the medieval streets or on a mountainside,” said Puodziunas.

Asceticism, bodily mortification, and fasting were constant reminders to Saint Francis of Christ’s suffering. At the hermitage of Carceri, a favorite retreat of Saint Francis, pilgrims can see the small stone niches where he slept, often using a wooden board as a pillow. Being close to sites strongly associated with St. Francis and St. Clare has inspired pilgrims to deepen their faith and serve others.

“Some of my neighbors in the Florida retirement community where I now live are dying,” said Regina Brown, one of Wathen’s pilgrims who volunteers with the Sick and Bedridden Ministry of St. Timothy Catholic Church in Florida. Brown explained that the Franciscan pilgrimage strengthened his practice of bringing communion to his bedridden friends. “It’s the closest I can come to keeping in mind and expressing my (our) hope in Christ, the promise of eternal life, the Mass, our glimpse of heaven,” she said.

Wathen’s pilgrimage concluded in Rome, where everything his group had learned about Saint Francis came into focus. At a papal audience in St. Peter’s Square, they witnessed its grandeur as Pope Leo XIV reflected on Christ’s living mystical body, the Church. Throughout the Jubilee year, pilgrims receive plenary indulgences by visiting any Franciscan church — including the Franciscan Monastery in Washington — or any site dedicated to St. Francis, receiving Holy Communion on the day of the visit, reciting the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed and the Glory Be for the Holy Father’s intentions, and making a confession within eight days.