Our Lady of the Angels

2 August 2006: Feast of Our Lady of the Angels - the Portiuncula

Today, 2 August is the Feast of Our Lady of the Angels. This celebration is now special to the Franciscan tradition. While it is a Marian feast, it celebrates the place which perhaps above all others is the cradle of the Franciscan movement. It was this tiny church, affectionately called the Portiuncula (the little portion) that the young Francis of Assisi rebuilt, it was there that Francis eventually lived with his brothers and the place to which he returned when he was close to death in order to die within its beloved boundaries. Here too, Clare of Assisi came when she secretly left her family to begin the great adventure that was to become "the Poor Ladies".
So, it is a place redolent in history and deep in the affections of those who today follow the way of the Gospel inspired by Francis to "follow in the footsteps of Jesus our brother".

Three of the many strands that colour this feast for me are poverty, gift and place.

It always amazes me that Francis, the Poverello, who sought to own nothing had no hesitation in accepting gifts of places such as Mt. Alvernia and the Portiuncula. (He 'rented' the church from the Benedictines for a basket of fish.) He told his brothers that this was a holy place and should they be thrown out one door they were to re-enter by another. Is this poverty?

The thing is, poverty was not an end in itself for Francis. Nor were these gifts for his own self-aggrandizement and power. They were always, in a sense, on loan. To accept such gifts with gratitude was the way of supporting that path, the way of contemplation, prayer and community. They were places where the community and Francis could find the grounding to move back into the 'marketplace' of the world where they preached and worked.

Poverty and gift are closely linked. For Francis, poverty had nothing at all to do with legalism or more significantly with any meanness of spirit or mind. Poverty was his generous-hearted response to God who gifted all creation with life and gifted us with redemption and above all gifted us with Jesus our Brother. He wrote,"Keep nothing for yourself, so that He who gave himself to you wholly, may receive you wholly."

As for place, the Portiuncula as it stands today is enshrined in the larger church built over it. It is this tiny gem at the heart of a great historical and spiritual movement. It always reminds me that we need sacred places as sacraments. A sacred place reminds us that all places are sacred, that all creation is sacred, that life is infused with the presence of God and the giftedness that is God and that God would bestow. Each of us, like this little church is a 'sacred place', a gift to the wider world.

So, today the feast questions us: how do I live my everyday as a gift, as gifted, as sacrament of something much larger than I am but that abides in me as the ancient church of Mary of the Angels abides in the larger church.