New York City, N.Y., Aug 2, 2019 / 03:18 am (CNA).- Today’s feast of Our Lady of the Angels of Porziuncola and its associated indulgence is a way to focus on the importance of Mary and the Franciscan tradition in the Church, said one friar.
The Aug. 2 feast is found in the Franciscan tradition, and marks the dedication of the parish church, called Porziuncola or “little portion,” which is one of those Italy’s St. Francis of Assisi rebuilt in obedience to Christ’s command to “rebuild my church.”
“The Porziuncola is at the heart of the Franciscan journey,” Father David Convertino, the development director for the Holy Name Province of the Observant Franciscans, told CNA.
“For Francis, it was his most beloved place. He lived near it with the early followers … and he loved the Porziuncola, as it was part of his devotion to Our Lady.”
The Catholic Church teaches that after a sin is forgiven, an unhealthy attachment to created things still remains. Indulgences remove that unhealthy attachment, purifying the soul so that it is more fit to enter heaven. Indulgences are either plenary (full) or partial.
A plenary indulgence also requires that the individual be in the state of grace and have complete detachment from sin. The person must also sacramentally confess their sins and receive Communion up to about 20 days before or after the indulgenced act.
Anyone who visits a Catholic church with the intention of honoring Our Lady of the Angels and recites the Creed, the Our Father, and prays for the Pope’s intentions, may receive a plenary indulgence on Aug. 2.
“Any kind of a prayer form that helps people come closer to God is obviously a good prayer form, and certainly an indulgence is one way,” Fr. Convertino said.
“It helps us focus on, in this case, the meaning of the Porziuncola and the Franciscan tradition, how it’s situated in the greater idea of the Church.”
Porziuncola located inside the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli near Assisi. Credit: emmav674 via Flickr (CC BY_NC_SA 2.0)
The Porziuncola was built in honor of Our Lady of the Angels in the fourth century, and by St. Francis’ time had fallen into disrepair. The church, which was then located just outside of Assisi, became the “motherhouse” of the Franciscan orders.
“Although Francis realized that the kingdom of heaven is found in every dwelling on earth … he had learned nevertheless that the church of Saint Mary at Portiuncula was filled with more abundant grace and visited more frequently by heavenly spirits,” says the life of St. Francis written by Friar Thomas of Celano, read today by Franciscans.
“Consequently he used to say to his friars: ‘See to it, my sons, that you never leave this place. If you are driven out by one door return by the other for this is truly a holy place and God’s dwelling.’”
Fr. Convertino added that the Porziuncola “was the place he chose to lie next to on his deathbed, and at that time of course you could have looked up to the city of Assisi, which he also loved so well.”
The Porziuncola, a rather small chapel, is now located inside a large basilica which was built around it, to enclose and protect it.
“You have this large basilica built over this teeny tiny little chapel,” Fr. Convertino reflected. “If that chapel wasn’t there then the basilica wouldn’t be there, but if the basilica wasn’t there, the chapel probably wouldn’t be there either, given 800 years of war, weather, and turmoil.”
For Fr. Convertino, the duality of the big church and the little church is a reflection of the relationship between the world-wide Catholic Church and the smaller communities which make it up.
“We feel the Franciscans kind of convey, we’re the ones at the heart of the Church, the little church there.”
He said that each time he visits Assisi, the “experience” of the Porziuncola is “compounded more and more,” and added that “it’s such a magnificent place, and the friars there are wonderful.”
Fr. Convertino also discussed the fresco now painted around the entrance of the Porziuncola, which shows St. Francis, together with some of his followers, receiving the indulgence from Christ and Our Lady.
“The idea behind the story is that Francis is asking Jesus for a Porziuncola indulgence, and Jesus is saying to Francis, ‘Well, you really better ask Mary, ask my mother.’”
This article was originally published Aug. 2, 2013.
[…]
““As a founding principle of our country, we have always welcomed immigrant and refugee populations, and through the social services and good works of the Church, we have accompanied our brothers and sisters in integrating to daily American life,” Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington and chair of the US bishops’ Comittee on Migration, said Jan. 2.”
Someone needs to take a remedial US history class.
SOL,
Which part of US history did you think they need a remedial class on?
Who are most Americans originally if not immigrants?
I’d agree it’s not correct to say that we have always, at all times welcomed immigrants and refugees but we certainly have done that selectively. And Catholics have for the greater part been among the groups of immigrants not warmly welcomed.
We need immigration to counteract the current birth dearth but we don’t have to have open borders or risk our national security. There should be a reasonable and humane approach to immigration.
Has it occurred to you that mass immigration is a cause of the drop in birthrates? By driving up the cost of living (housing, heath care, taxes, etc.), while depressing wages, it makes family formation so much more difficult.
Tony,
Birthrates are plummeting globally with or without immigration. Even government incentives to have a replacement level birthrate have failed.
Hungary is offering tax incentives for families and hopefully they’ll have some success.
Mrscracker,
The founding American people were not immigrants but colonists/settlers. They didn’t enter into a pre-existing polity and receive citizenship or some other form of membership from another people. The whole “America is a land of immigrants” myth was created by leftist subversives even if used by 20th ce nationalists for their own purposes after the fact, more than 3 centuries after the first British colonists started settling this country. Many of the founding fathers after the revolution even explicitly wrote on the question of whether anyone non-British should be allowed to immigrate to the US.
This original Anglo-American (and Protestant Christian) heritage and identity is what the left is trying to erase and unfortunately too many Catholic bishops are assisting in this, even if the bishops seek to replace it with some vague “Catholic” identity.
This system is currently in a stage of collapse, and continued immigration will further destabilization and increase the likelihood of wide-scale violence, regardless of how necessary believers in infinite economic growth say immigrants are for that.
SOL,
Good morning!
My daddy’s side of the family has been here for 400 years. I went to the UK a few years ago and visited the parish church of a 17th century colonial ancestor. In his memorial he’s referred to as “Henry the Immigrant” because he migrated to the American Colonies.
🙂
You know, the longer your ancestors have lived in North America the more likely you are to find non Anglo Saxon ancestry or ancestors who came as convicts. The American colonies were a dumping ground for thousands of British convicts until the Revolutionary War. After that, the British had to turn to Australia and Tasmania to dump their unwanted.
Beyond chattel slavery, folks of African ancestry have been here for 400 plus years. Many were free people of color and many intermarried with white colonists.
And of course, our American Indians have their own perspectives on immigration.
History is complicated and the more you look at it, the more humble you feel. Most of us have very modest beginnings and sometimes, we find very surprising narratives along the way.
Your argument seems to be that, since we are all the descendants of immigrants (in the broadest sense of the word), there is no justification for this nation (or really, any nation) to have a restrictive immigration policy. Apparently, this Ellis Island sentimentalism must override all other political, social, cultural and economic considerations. Does a country have a right to try to maintain its ethnic and cultural balance by limiting who is allowed in?
More mindless, liberal rubbish from bishops who seem utterly incapable of, not to mention unwilling to, speak in anything other than left wing cliches. Will they ever declare solidarity with the American people?
Looked up the bishop in question.
Wikipedia: Mario Eduardo Dorsonville-Rodríguez (born October 31, 1960) is a Colombian-born bishop of the Catholic Church in the United States.
Like Jose Gomez, another immigrant who is presumptuous enough to lecture Americans about American history and identity.
Thanks for the information. I suppose the good bishop has admonished the elites in Colombia on the need to clean up the corruption and to improve the nation’s economy that has apparently created such intolerable conditions.
Wish the bishops (and the nuns!!) would show a little solidarity with the dyslexic/dyscalculaic/etc community.
.
Just because dyslexics frequently have high intelligence does not mean they all go to MIT and walk out with $75,000 starting income.
.
Many suffer socially as well as educationally and the job situation upon adulthood can look bleak. As many prisoners are dyslexic, I think it is a good bet if it was caught early in school, we’d have fewer children in trouble and fewer adults in prison.
.
I mean no ill will toward those looking for a better life, but we have plenty of hurting children/adults who were born here. Don’t they deserve the same concern?
Tony,
North Americans, with the exception of those descended from our Indian tribes, are all the product of quite diverse immigrant populations from the past 400-500 years. I dislike the term “diverse ” because it’s become a cliche, but it really does describe our immigrant history.
I don’t think race or ethnicity should even enter into a Catholic conversation regarding what to conserve in America. Color and ethnicity simply don’t signify but culture does.
A Judeo Christian culture is what conservative Christians and others should be concerned about preserving. Not Anglo Saxonism. Culture, not color is what’s critical.
And yes, I strongly believe that sovereign nations have a right to secure their borders and enforce immigration laws. And preserve their unique cultures. But you have to have enough population to ensure a functioning society to pass that culture down to. Societies that are ageing and not reproducing themselves won’t be capable of that and will eventually be replaced.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Immigrants – they are ambassadors of the Good News.
All of them? How so? In what way?