1/10/2024 0 Comments Santuario lavernaLa Verna’s buildings stand in memory of these events. His followers discovered these stigmata only as they prepared his body for burial at Assisi in October of that same year. During Lent of 1224, we are told, he was visited by an angel who marked his hands, feet, and side with the wounds of Jesus from the cross. Out of humility he kept secret what happened to him on his last retreat there. He prayed and slept in a cold, wet and mossy cave near his project. He soon began work on a small chapel he named Santa Maria degli Angeli. On his first stay, we are told, families of birds swarmed around him in welcome. If you might like it, I could give it all away to you and your brothers, for my soul’s release.” The saint accepted, and the result is Santuario della Verna, one of Italy’s most revered and remote holy places.įrancis’ visits to La Verna are the stuff of legends. “I have an estate in Tuscany, a faithful mountain, called La Verna which is very lonely and covered by wilderness, and it is even too suitable for those who are willing to do penance in a forgotten place, or for those who wish for a solitary life. Overcome by their meeting, Count Orlando Catani of Chiusi made the saint a gift. “We can talk as long as you like,” he was told in gentle tones. “I have cause to rejoice even for pain and sorrow,” said the saint, “if I think of how much good I am waiting for.” One member in particular of the audience was so taken by his presence that he asked to talk with Francis over dinner. Francis of Assisi and his friend, Leone, are wandering preachers in the region of Montefeltro. Then we realize this is just how Francis would want it. Francis, but instead we meet the beauty of Creation. We stand together in awe at the extraordinary, breathtaking vista of the distant blue-green mountains and valleys of the Casentino Forest. Excited, we forget our weariness and sense we are being pulled forward, up ramps and steps to a small piazza with low buildings on three sides and on the fourth side what we didn’t quite expect. Finally at the front gate we see only low, stone buildings with tile and slate rooftops. Sensing we are almost there, we continue to climb on stone footpaths around to the front, anxious for glimpses of the sanctuary which remains hidden from our curious eyes. ![]() We come to a meadow and see above us a stone building perched atop a high granite cliff - our first glimpse of anything human-made in this ancient forest. It’s not so much the exertion, which is substantial, but the anticipation. As our small group of Way of St Francis pilgrims climbs on shaded pathways up through the fairytale forests of Monte Penna to Santuario della Verna our hearts are beating rapidly.
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