800 Years Ago St Francis Died on a Saturday Evening

Another Saint whose Feast is not on the date of their death. Yesterday was his Feast, but he actually died on 3 October. Mr Kosloski explains.

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

October 3 marks the "transitus" of St. Francis of Assisi, the day when he passed from this life to the next.

While most are familiar with the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4, few know that he technically died the day before, on the evening of October 3.

In St. Bonaventure's Life of St. Francis of Assisi, he writes, "Now the holy Father departed from the shipwreck of this world in the year 1226 of the Lord’s Incarnation ... at late even of a Saturday, and on the Sunday he was buried."

When you look at a calendar of 1226, October 3 is a Saturday and October 4 is a Sunday. If St. Francis died on Saturday evening, then he technically died on October 3.

For this reason members of the Franciscan Order continue to recollect his last hours with a service called the Transitus of St. Francis. The Latin word transitus simply means "passing over," and so it marks the passing over of St. Francis of Assisi into eternal life.

St. Francis' final hours

Thomas Celano provides a glimpse in his early biography how St. Francis spent his final days on this earth:

St. Francis spent the last few days before his death in praising the Lord and teaching his companions whom he loved so much to praise Christ with him. He himself, in as far as he was able, broke out with the Psalm: I cry to the Lord with my voice; to the Lord I make loud supplication. He likewise invited all creatures to praise God and, with the words he had composed earlier, he exhorted them to love God. Even death itself, considered by all to be so terrible and hateful, was exhorted to give praise, while he himself, going joyfully to meet it, invited it to make its abode with him. “Welcome,” he said, “my sister death.” 

He exhorted his brothers to remain steadfast in their faith and to be faithful to the Church.

St. Bonaventure reports in his biography that St. Francis said on the day of his death, "Farewell, my children, abide in the fear of the Lord, and ever persevere therein. And when any temptation or trouble approaches you say: Blessed are they who persevere in those things which they have begun. And now I go to God, to whose grace I commend you all."

St. Francis then asked that the Gospel of John be read to him and then Psalm 141.

Afterwards he finally breathed his last, and according to St. Bonaventure, some around him saw his soul rising to Heaven:

One of his brethren and disciples saw that blessed soul under the appearance of a glorious star, borne upwards by a white cloud, and so carried as upon many waters, straight to Heaven; and that glorious cloud betokened the sublime purity of sanctity and the fulness of heavenly wisdom and abundant grace.

His body was carried through the city of Assisi the next day, and stopped at St. Clare's convent so that she could pay her final respects.

When St. Francis was later canonized, his feast was fixed to October 4, though he technically died on October 3.