Our Morning Offering – 17 September – “The Month of The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary and The Holy Cross” – Feast of The Stigmata of St Francis of Assisi:
Crucis Christi mons Alvernae
By St Francis of Assisi OFM (c1181-1226)
Let Alverna’s holy mountain
That high mystery proclaim,
Of the sigus of life eternal
Which on blessed Francis came;
While he sobbed and while he sighed,
Grieving for the Crucified.
There, within a lowly cavern,
Far from all the world withdrawn,
As the Saint his watch was keeping,
With incessant scourgings torn,
Ever musing more and more
On the wounds which Jesus bore;
As he prayed in cold and hunger;
As he poured his glowing tears;
In his fervent spirit mounting
Far above terrestrial spheres,
Every earthly thing forgot
In his Saviour’s bitter lot.
Lo to him, in form seraphic,
Borne upon a Cross on high,
Six irradiant wings expanding
Came the King of glory nigh,
Gazing on him with a face
Of benignity and grace.
He saw that tender glance returning,
Saw th’ Incarnate Light of Light;
Saw his gracious meek Redeemer,
Robed in glory Infinite;
Drank the words which from Him fell,–
Words divine, unspeakable!
Straightway all the sacred summit
Kindles like a flaming pyre;
Holy Francis sinks enraptured
Fainting with ecstatic fire
And upon his flesh appear
Christ’s immortal Stigmata!
Honour to the high Redeemer,
Who for us in torments died,
In Whose Image blessed Francis
Suffered and was sanctified,
Counting everything but loss
For the glory of the Cross.
This Hymn is given in a Franciscan Breviary, printed at Venice in 1495, as the Hymn at first Vespers on the Feast of the Stigmata of St Francis 17 Sept (Paris, 1597).
The Five Sundays in Honour of
The Sacred Stigmata (Feast 17 September)
All the faithful who, upon the five Sundays which immediately precede the Feast of the Sacred Stigmata of St Francis of Assisi, OR upon any other five consecutive Sundays during the year, shall exercise themselves, either in pious meditation, or in vocal prayer, or in any other work of Christian piety, in honour of the said Sacred Stigmata, a Plenary Indulgence is granted once a year, on each of the 5 Sundays, on the usual conditions. (Leo XIII, 21 Nov 1885).
AnaStpaul 