The Great Pardon

By happy circumstance or strategic planning while touring Italy you may find yourself in Assisi from Aug. 1-2. Then you may enter the vast basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. 

Like many other visitors you may quickly pass through the grand papal interior and head for the humble, small “church within a church” known as the Portiuncula (Porziuncola). 

By visiting this chapel during these dates, you can receive pardon for yourself or for any departed family member as part of the “Great Pardon of Assisi.”

Located in the plains below Assisi and considered to be the most holy place by Franciscans, St. Francis attained the Portiuncula (which is Italian for “Little Portion”) from the Dominicans of Subasio in the 9th Century. It was one of the several churches St. Francis rebuilt after he knelt before an orthodox style cross in San Damiano and heard the Lord say to him, “Francis rebuild my church.” St. Francis at first took it literally and later understood it was meant in a spiritual sense.

In 1211, the friars came to live at the Portiuncula, dedicated to St. Mary of the Angels and now enclosed in the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels. It became the “cradle” of the Franciscan order. 

It was also at the Portiuncula where St. Clare came to the friars to make her vows during the night following Palm Sunday in 1212.  She received her habit before the altar of Our Lady, and St. Francis cut her hair and the Order of Poor Ladies, which later became the Order of Poor Clares, began. It was the place where “Sister Death came to take St. Francis to be reunited with God” on Oct. 3, 1226.

One night in 1216, St. Francis was praying in the little church and saw above the altar Christ and the Virgin Mary surrounded by angels, according to tradition. When asked what he wanted for faithful souls he requested a broad and generous pardon, with a complete remission of all sins, to those who repented and confessed their sins when entering into the church. 

His request was granted on the condition the pope grant his request. St. Francis rushed to Pope Honorius III, who granted the petition.

A few days later at the Portiuncula in the presence of the bishops of Umbria and the people assembled, St. Francis announced with tears, “My brothers and sisters, I want to send you all to paradise.”

The indulgence was later extended to anyone who visits a parish or Franciscan church Aug. 1 or 2.

The current indulgence requirements are to receive the sacraments of reconciliation eight days before or after an “initiate appeal” for the indulgence; attend Mass and receive the Eucharist; visit a Franciscan parish or church; recite either the Nicene or Apostle’s Creed; pray the Lord’s Prayer; and pray for the pope and his intentions.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI, poignantly captured the essence of the special indulgence in his book, “Pardon of Assisi:”

 “Basically, the indulgence is just like the church of Portiuncula. Just as you have to pass through the rather cold, extraneous space of a huge basilica to find the humble church at the center that touches our heart, so too, one must pass thought the complex history and of the theological ideas to arrive at that which is truly simple: the prayer with which we let ourselves fall into the communion of saints, to cooperate with them for the victory over the apparently all-powerful evil, knowing that in the end, everything is grace.”