Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are visiting Assisi this month to venerate the bones of St Francis, which are on display for the first time since his death 800 years ago. Before this year, St. Francis’ bones had been visible to the public just once in the 800 years since his death—for a single day in 1978.
Now, to mark the 800th anniversary of the saint’s passing, they are on display for a whole month.
Some 220,000 pilgrims have already come to see the relics, and the friars in Assisi, the central Italian hill – town where Francis lived and where his mortal remains now lie, think that the number might reach as high as 400,000. Each of these visitors leaves the city “knowing they have encountered St. Francis,” says Fr. Benedict La Volpe, a Franciscan from Australia who ministers to pilgrims in Assisi. “They have encountered the spirit of Francis, the person of Francis, who speaks to them today, 800 years after his death.”
A press release from the Basilica where St. Francis is buried said that the display of the relics was “an invitation to rediscover the heritage left to us by Francis, a man whose message of peace and fraternity continues to speak to the heart of humanity.”
St. Francis chose to be buried outside Assisi’s city walls, in a spot known as the Hill of Hell (Collo d’inferno) where criminals were put to death. Today’s extraordinary Basilica, constructed on two levels with world-famous frescoes by Giotto, was purpose-built to house his remains. In the lower Basilica, groups of visitors line up to view St. Francis’ skeleton. The pilgrims, a number of them wheelchair-bound, each take a few seconds to pray in silence in front of the bones.
What message does the saint’s life hold for us today? Reflecting on his legacy, the “inner peace” Francis found in his encounter with Jesus—a peace, he says, which is the foundation of the political peace which today seems more elusive than ever.
What St. Francis teaches us, is that the sort of interior peace which comes from encountering God can “grow in our hearts, and be extended throughout our community, and then into the world as well.”
