“Buona Festa!” “Happy Feast!” “Bonne fête!”
The joyful greetings take place, in an unusual break with tradition, over three days. With the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and the Muslim holiday of Id el-Adha falling on the same day, the Custody had to make some changes in the usual course of the St. Francis Day celebrations.
First Vespers took place according to custom on Friday, October 3rd, but the festive mass was moved from October 4th to Sunday the fifth.
In union with the whole Order of Friars Minor and the fraternities of the Holy Land, the Custos, Fra Pierbattista Pizzaballa, presided over First Vespers in Saint Saviour Church in Jerusalem.
During these festive days, the Custos addressed a word to the friars of the province, particularly recommending to their prayers Syria and the Custody’s mission there, especially the friars in Knaiyeh and Yacoubieh, where the situation is deteriorating day by day.
The Custos spoke about the gospel parable of the workers sent to the vineyard (Matt 20:1-16) in his homily, saying that rather than complaining about hard work we should rejoice that we have been called by the Lord to work for him.
Those friars who had not yet made solemn profession renewed their vows in the course of First Vespers, coming one by one to kneel before the Custos and undertake another temporary engagement in the Order.
Referring to the gospel, the Custos explained that having received a calling to life as a religious, each friar should give his give his life joyfully and in gratitude. This is how Christianity developed: in seeing the love and joy of the first Christians, as well as God’s goodness and sense of justice, so different from our own, the people who surrounded the first Christians could not but convert.
The Transitus, a commemoration of the last moments of the Little Poor Man from Assisi, took place in a very recollected and “incarnate” atmosphere, as the assembled worshippers all knelt in the darkness, looking at a painting of the death of Saint Francis while the narrative of his last moments was read. At the end of the ceremony, a relic of the saint was venerated by each.
On Saturday, October 4th, the saint’s feast day, the city was filled with a profound silence as the Custody celebrated the definitive engagement of Fra David Grenier in the Franciscan Order. (See article.)
Mass was celebrated on Sunday, October 5th, by Father Guy Tardivy, the superior of the Saint Stephen’s Monastery. The Franciscans were joined in the joy of celebrating the feast of their holy founder by many friends: Mgr. William Shomali, Auxiliary Latin Bishop of Jerusalem, and Mgr. Moussa El-Hage, Maronite Bishop of the Holy Land, were seated in the choir. Representatives of other Christian denominations in Jerusalem were present in the congregation; Syriac Orthodox, Armenian, Ethiopian, Greek Orthodox—everyone came to express their friendship with the Franciscans. In keeping with tradition, the Consuls General of Spain and France were present, as were the Vice-Consuls of Italy and Belgium. The Vice-Consul of Turkey was present, and so was a representative of the municipal authorities.
The church was full, and the Magnificat Institute choir gave voice to the prayer. Fr. Tardivy’s homily dealt with the lives of Saints Dominic and Francis, contemporaries who chose life styles that joined poverty and love of the Church. “Everything, perhaps, can be summed up in one word: love. Love like Christ, radically. May we, like them, live out the radicality of love in service to the Church and to the world.”
After the liturgy, refreshments were offered to the congregation, while the friars’ particular guests accompanied them to the refectory for a meal. After the joyous and fraternal festivities, five Dominicans and five Franciscans alternated in singing the praises of the other congregation and its saint. This beautiful time of brotherhood closed the Franciscan triduum.