Sermon

2nd August  26

We were thinking last week about St James the Great, the patron saint of pilgrims and pilgrimage.  It is to the theme of pilgrimage that we return today for these first two Sundays of August, as we recall our Parish Pilgrimage three years ago in March 2023.

On the Thursday, we visited two 13^th Century basilicas in the hill town of Assisi.  In the morning, we went to Santa Chiara built over the tomb of St Clare (about whom I shall have more to say next week) and, in the afternoon, to San Francesco built over the tomb of St Francis.  But there is a third basilica in Assisi, and so, the following morning, we caught the bus down into the valley below Assisi to visit it.

But this Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli (St Mary of the Angels) doesn’t contain the bones of a famous saint, but rather something else of importance to the Franciscan order.  For inside this huge Church is a much smaller Church: like a Russian doll, a Church within a Church.  This little Church is many centuries older than the 17^th Century baroque basilica in which it is now housed.  It is called the Porziuncola, after the small portion of land on which it once sat.

It was once owned by the Benedictine Order but was given to St Francis around 1209, thus becoming the headquarters of the movement which he founded.  As such, it was then, and remains to this day, the Mother Church of the Franciscan order: the focal point for the friars to gather from all over the world.  It was in the grounds of this little Church that Francis died nearly 800 years ago, and we visited the site of his death a few metres from the Porziuncola, also now covered by the great baroque basilica.  Today, 2^nd August, is kept by the Franciscan Order as the Feast of St Mary of the Angels at the Porziuncola.

Francis was the founder and leader of the movement which still bears his name.  But he could not achieve much on his own.  He soon gathered a group of like-minded men, four of whose tombs we saw in the crypt of San Francesco, gathered around that of Francis.  

No one person can do all that God wills on their own: be that Our Lord who called his disciples to work alongside him; our Patron Saint who founded an order to share his mission; or the leaders of the Church today.  Next month, we will welcome Fr James to lead us in the next phase of the life of this Church and Parish.  For his ministry to be successful, for our Church to grow and to be of even better use to God and to the community in which we are set, we will all need to work with him, supporting him not just in our prayers but in all aspects of the work of the Church in this place.

Amen