“TSSF PILGRIMAGE to ASSISI Eight days - Seven nights 28th September - 6th October 2023/4 “Feast of St Francis of Assisi” 1182- 1226
BASIC ITINERARY DAY ONE - Thursday 28th September Stansted to Perugia Check in for our RyanAir flight to Perugia. Flight Stansted Depart 7.30 am Arrive. 11.05 On arrival transfer by mini coach to our accommodation in the old town of Assisi, at St Antony’s Franciscan Convent for an eight day stay. Room allocation and lunch a local restaurant. After lunch we visit the San Stefano, Maurorupta the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, the Chiesa Nuova (New Church), built on the site of Francis’ house and then to the Cathedral of San Rufino, the undercroft and Roman sites. TSSF Evening Prayers and explanation of the San Damiano Cross in the conference room at the convent. Dinner will be taken in a local restaurant and then on each evening of our stay,.
DAY TWO - Friday 29th SAN DAMIANO This morning we will celebrate Mass in a chapel in the Convent. After breakfast we visit St Clare’s Basilica, which now houses the Crucifix that spoke to St. Francis, later we walk to San Damiano Church which was where St Francis received the message from the Crucifix “to go and repair my church” Here St Clare spent her cloistered life and here Later, she established a convent of Franciscan sisters following the spirit of "obedience, poverty and chastity". Then we walk to Monsterio de Bose and the crypt St Francis used. Dinner at a local restaurant.
Day THREE Saturday 30th RIVO TORTO Assisi on the road to Foligno, which was the leper colony where Francis kissed the leper. From here we have the short drive to Rivo Torto, the first house of the Franciscan order “For the next couple of months, Francis wandered as a beggar in the hills behind Assisi. He spent some time at a neighbouring monastery working as a scullion. He then went to Gubbio, where a friend gave him, as an alms, the cloak, girdle, and staff of a pilgrim. Returning to Assisi, he traversed the city begging stones for the restoration of St. Damiano's. These he carried to the old chapel, set in place himself, and so at length rebuilt it. Over the course of two years, he embraced the life of a penitent, during which he restored several ruined chapels in the countryside around Assisi, among them San Pietro in Spina (in the area of San Petrignano in the valley about a kilometre from Rivotorto, today on private property and once again in ruin); and the Porziuncola, the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels in the plain just below the town.[7] This later became his favourite abode.[14] By degrees he took to nursing lepers, in the lazar houses near Assisi. Dinner at a local restaurant.
Day FOUR SUNDAY 1st October Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi Visit Basilica of St Francis, to join the English Mass in the Upper Church, with our Franciscan Brothers resident in the Basilica. Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi (St. Francis): The Franciscan monastery, il Sacro Convento, and the lower and upper church (Italian: Basilica inferiore and Basilica superiore) of St Francis were begun immediately after his canonization in 1228, and completed in 1253. The lower church has frescoes by the late-medieval artists Cimabue and Giotto; the upper church houses frescoes of scenes in the life of St. Francis previously ascribed to Giotto, but now thought to be by artists of the circle of Pietro Cavallini from Rome. The Basilica was badly damaged by a 5.5 earthquake on 26 September 1997, during which part of the vault collapsed, killing four people inside the church and carrying with it a fresco by Cimabue Walking around Assisi, in the places St Francis would have known and walked. The walls and gates, to the Undercroft under the Piazza de Commune and onto the Amphitheatre including the Roman Poets house. Dinner at a local restaurant.
Day FIVE Monday 2nd October La Verna We drive to the mountain retreat of La Verna, have lunch at the refectory, and join the procession and Mass 15.00 ↝ Ora Nona e Processione alla Cappella delle Stimmate in the Sanctuary. At La Verna he awaited the culmination of the experience of love, the giving of life. He had the courage to ask precisely this in his nights of prayer, solitude and rapture: to feel a little of the love and pain that Jesus Christ felt in the moments of his Passover of Death and Resurrection. He was heard and, around the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), his body was marked with the same wounds as the Crucifix the Stigmata. Returning to Assisi for Dinner at a local restaurant.
DAY SIX - Tuesday 3rd October The Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi We begin at Santa Maria Maggiore, the Spogliazione, to remind us to give all earthly things to loss and put our faith and trust in God. Then onto the Porziuncola, the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels in the plain just below the town. This later became his favourite abode we visit the 17th century Basilica to first see the Porziuncola, the small chapel where Francis heard the message of his mission. The Rose garden, and The Transitus Chapel. Dinner at a local restaurant. We return to Santa Maria degli Angeli to join the celebrations and the presentation of the “Silver Rose” later in the evening we join the procession of flaming torches.
Day SIX Wednesday 4th Feast of St Francis We join the procession and festivities as the town of Assisi and the Italians celebrate their most famous Saint In the Piazza del Comune to the Basilica, then to hear the proclamation to the people of Italy, from the Basilica and the retelling of the most famous “Canticle of the Creatures” Dinner at a local restaurant.
Day SEVEN Thursday 5th Free time to enjoy the Franciscan celebrations and town market filling the whole town square and streets with the joys of St Francis, in the afternoon we visit Bevagna and Cannara the sites of the first Third Order establishments and the ‘preaching to the birds’. Alternative option:- opportunities to re-visit the sites and sanctuaries seen during the pilgrimage. Pilgrimage Dinner at a local restaurant.
Day EIGHT Friday 6th This morning we celebrate TSSF Prayers in the Convent chapel then after breakfast, our time is free for packing, before we leave Assisi and our taxis drive us to Perugia/ Airport where we check in for our return flight to Stansted Flight 11.45 Depart - 13.15 Arrive. Depart for home. Day EIGHT Friday 6th RIETI VALLEY This morning after an early breakfast we travel by mini coach towards Rome and into the Rieti Valley, to visit hermitages from the early part of the Franciscan mission. Fonte Colombo, Greccio, Poggio Bustone, all had been founded early in the life of St. Francis’ mission and used during his journeys to see the Pope, negotiating and obtaining his, first, second and third “rules of life”.