EVENTS IN ASSISI

Feast of the Patron Saint of Assisi - 2 August

The Feast of the Patron Saint of Assisi commemorates and celebrates a night in 1216 when Christ appeared to St. Francis in the Church of the Porziuncola in Santa Maria degli Angeli. When the son of God asked St. Francis what he wanted for the salvation of the souls of the world, he dared to ask the impossible: plenary indulgence for those who came to pray in the church of the Porziuncola, or in other words: "I ask that all those persons who have repented and confessed their sins who will come to this church, may obtain a full and generous pardon, and a complete remission of all their faults.”

The story tells that St. Francis immediately departed from Assisi to meet with the Pope who in those days was visiting the diocese of Perugia. Honorius III trembled before the incredible request, but he dared not reject the saint who already moved with the air of sanctity. The St. of Assisi provided the pope with an answer emblematic to his soul as they saw him go away without having asked for a Papal bull, a document or temporal expiration for the highest of privileges he was requesting for the church of the Porziuncola of Assisi, “I am not asking for years, but for souls. Christ is the notary and the angels are the witnesses ”. This is the story of the Forgiveness that is told in The Diploma of Teobaldo.

Therefore in Assisi, on the 2nd of August, for more than seven centuries, with the Feast of Forgiveness, there is a re-enactment of that night, with a long procession that reaches the church of the Porziuncola, where the faithful gathered in prayer receive for themselves and the souls in Purgatory, plenary indulgence for the sins they have committed.