The Transitus is a devotion, a semi liturgical celebration, held annually on the evening of October 3 to commemorate the passing or “transit” of Saint Francis of Assis from this earthly life to the next life in heaven. The event is celebrated worldwide, locally, wherever a Franciscan Family or Community exist. This commemoration is interspersed with liturgical symbols, reenactment of the last day of Francis, and breaking of the bread. For many Franciscan nuns, priests, brothers and third order seculars, the Transitus is a very important event to recall and remember the life and teachings of Francis before he left his earthly life. Weary and torn, lying on the ground and embracing lady poverty, Francis still managed to teach his first followers the morsels of praising God even in the hardest of all human situations. I have reposted an article below that tackles the Transitus and also videos of the actual celebration to give you an idea what is happening during the Transitus. The video of the Transitus is presented by the Franciscan Youth Movement from the Philippines, Meycauayan Bulacan Chapter (sorry, I could not find any english version of the Transitus so the language you will hear on the video is in Filipino).

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THE TRANSITUS

by Daniel Grigassy, O.F.M.
from The Cord 43, no. 10
(October 1993): pages 261-274

A devotion familiar to all Franciscans which has survived the test of the last three decades is the Transitus. Each year on the third evening of October, we ritually remember the passing of Francis of Assisi from this life into God. In fact, the Transitus has become a significant and even a necessary annual event. To ritually revisit the story of Francis’ passing is vital; without it something significant is missing. It specifies the living memory of Francis; it intensifies our commitment to follow Christ in the way of the poor man of Assisi.

Since this rite of intensification has become an annual expectation for most friars, sisters, and seculars, a consideration of its origins and meanings seems worthwhile and timely. It is surprising that no historical study of the Transitus has been undertaken in the past three decades when so much ritual flux has been the order of the day. Questions begin to emerge when Franciscans with a living memory of the pre-conciliar era think critically about the Transitus. Who fills the roles of the various ministries in the rite? Who presides? Does it matter who presides? What does the presider wear? Does it matter what the presider wears? What do Franciscans in the assembly wear? Does it matter what they wear? Who reads the narrative text? Who cantors? What is the role of the assembly? What texts, sung or spoken, are included or not included in the rite? When is the rite celebrated? Where is the rite celebrated? How is the rite enacted? What are the gestures and postures taken by the ministry, by the assembly? What are the primary ritual objects? How do they interact with one another? Why do we even bother to enact the rite each year?

In the asking of such questions, very telling meanings and values come to the fore which are tacitly operative in the rite. Non-verbals often yield more significant data in ritual analysis than the verbal elements. Ritual texts are important, but rituals are more than texts. Only within the lived context of the people who enact the rite do the ritual texts take on meanings which spill over the texts and into others forms of ritual expression. At times the non-verbals disclose more meanings than the verbals. In other words, the rite may say more than we wish to tell!

Meditate upon the following readings and scripture, describing the last days and hours of our Father Francis:

A reading from Thomas of Celano and St. Bonaventure

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.” (Celano, Second Life.)

When the hour of his death approached, Francis asked that all of the brothers living with him be called to his death bed and softening his departure with consoling words, he encouraged them with fatherly affection to love God. He spoke of patience and poverty and of being faithful to the Holy Roman Church, giving precedence to the Holy Gospels before all else. He then stretched his hands over the brothers in the form of a cross, a symbol that he loved so much, and gave his blessings to all followers, both present and absent, in the power and in the name of the Crucified. Then he added: “Remain, my sons, in the fear of the Lord and be with him always. And as temptations and trials beset you, blessed are those who persevere to the end in the life they have chosen. I am on my way to God and I commend you all to His favor.”

With this sweet admonition, this dearly beloved to God, asked that the book of the Gospels be brought to him and that the passage in the Gospel of St. John, which begins before the Feast of the Passover be read. Finally, when all God’s mysteries had been accomplished in him, his holy soul was freed from his body and assumed into the abyss of God’s glory, and Francis fell asleep in God. (Bonaventure, Major Life.)

John 13: 1-17

Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.”

When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you as example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.