(This former blog entry has been reedited for 2013.) There are no fewer than four feast days in the Roman-Franciscan calendar this week (Transfiguration, St. Dominic, St. Lawrence and St. Clare of Assisi). Today's observance is classified as a Memorial; however, it is intimately tied to the Feast we celebrate on Friday, that of St. Lawrence. According to the sixth chapter of the Acts of...
St. Luke's account of the Transfiguration is my personal favorite. In the course of relating this event, which is also told in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, St. Luke adds two details that always remind me of what this event means in my own personal life.
The first thing that St. Luke tells us is that this took place in the context of prayer. Jesus had gone to the mountain...
Since his election as the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has made at least two trips to the Basilica of St. Mary Major where he has prayed before the icon of Our Lady, the Help of Rome. Today the Church remembers the dedication of that basilica.
St. Mary Major is one of four basilicas in Rome. Even though it is located outside the Vatican itself, it is owned by the Holy See and enjoys...
Today we Franciscans celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Angels. The little church in which St. Francis founded the Order of Friars Minor was so named. Today that little church sits under the dome of the great basilica in the city of the same name, nestled at the foot of the mountain on which Assisi is built. Thousands of pilgrims will come to confess in that basilica today as this...