St. Katherine Drexel Regional Fraternity
Regional Spiritual Assistant
St. Francis of Assisi Friary
1901 Prior Road
Wilmington, Delaware 19809
tel: (302) 798-1454 fax: (302) 798-3360 website: skdsfo email: pppgusa@gmail.com
October 2026
Pray in honor of St. Francis of Assisi Signed with the Wounds of the Passion of Christ.
Seraphic Father, St. Francis of Assisi, you were sealed with the image of the Passion of our Savior,
that hearts of all people might be rekindled with the fire of Divine Love.
As you bore the imprint of the Wounds of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
I ask you to pray for me through those signs of God’s love for you
that I be a sign of the Lord’s living presence and love for all.
Through the wound of your right hand, pray that my hands be always raised in blessing to others.
Through the wound of your left hand pray that I may always reach out for what leads me closer to God
and that my hands may always be outstretched to assist those in need.
Through the wound of your right foot, pray that I may fulfill the words of the prophet
who blesses the feet of the bearer of peace and good tidings.
Through the wound of your left foot, pray that at the crossroads of life,
my steps may always seek out the direction that leads to the fulfillment of the Father’s plan for me.
Through the wound of your side pray that,
as you, so also I may approach all people with a disarmed heart,
that they may see in me, as so many saw in you,
the image of the compassionate Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God and lives forever and ever. Amen.
Each day quotes from the Sources of the last hours of St. Francis, the Letter of Brother Elias announcing the death of Francis, the Decree of Canonization of Pope Gregory IX
(Prayer of Pope Leo XIV in honor of the Jubilee Year of the Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi)
1 – A Roman friend of Saint Francis, Jacoba of Settesoli, is part of the traditions about his final days. She was a woman of means and courage and a close friend of the friars. Jacoba arrived. The friars usually restricted women from entering their spaces. Saint Francis is said to have declared that the rule did not need to be applied to her in the same way. Even a man remembered for letting go of everything received, at the end, the care offered by a friend.
2 – Saint Francis asked for bread. He blessed it and shared it with his companions. The gesture recalled Jesus’s supper with the disciples. A frail man surrounded by people who knew they would soon miss him. He asked them to read the passage from John’s Gospel in which Jesus washes his friends’ feet. That text had guided his life: the greatest places himself at the service of others. Saint Francis did not leave the brothers a secret for gaining power. He reminded them of service.
3 – On the night of October 3, 1226, Saint Francis died at the Portiuncula. Franciscans call this moment the Transitus, a word that means passage. For this reason, it is commemorated on the night of October 3, while the liturgical feast of Saint Francis is celebrated on October 4. Saint Francis had included Sister Death in the Canticle. Now he met what he had sung about.
4 – After Saint Francis died, the brothers looked at his body and the marks it bore. Soon the farewells and the journey to Assisi began. Two years later, he would be declared a saint. A great basilica would be built. Artists would cover walls with scenes from his life. People in many countries would learn his name. But that night there was no basilica. There was a little church. Earth. A cloth. Shared bread. Friends. Larks.
5 – The greatness Saint Francis had sought as a boy finally found him, but in a way Giovanni (Francesco) could never have imagined. It was not the greatness of possessing a kingdom. It was the greatness of reminding the world that every person can be a brother or sister and that no creature is too small to receive love.
6 – Elias writes to the brotherhood of the death of Francis: To Brother Gregory, his dearest brother in Christ, minister of the province of France, and to all his other brothers and ours, he sends his greetings to Brother Elijah the sinner.
7 – Before I begin to speak, a groan rises from my heart, and rightly so. My roar is as of flooding waters, for what I feared has happened to me and to you; and what frightened me has fallen upon me and you: He who was our consolation has gone far away;
8 – He who carried us in his arms like lambs, went to a distant region. He, who taught the way of life and obedience to Jacob, and delivered a testament of peace for Israel, because he was loved by God and men, was introduced into the brightest mansions of heaven. If for him we must rejoice with all joy, for us it is only regret, because we have remained without him while darkness envelops us and the shadow of death covers us.
9 – If it is an unbridgeable loss for all, it is a special danger for me, whom he left in the midst of darkness surrounded by too many occupations and crushed by innumerable evils. And therefore I beseech you: weep with me, brothers, for weeping oppresses me and I weep for all of you. We were orphaned without a father, deprived of the one who was the light of our eyes.
10 – Truly the presence of our brother and father Francis was true light, not only for us who were his companions in the same profession of life, but also for those who were far away. It was, in fact, a light aroused by true light that illuminates those who were in darkness and sat in the shadow of death to direct their steps on the path of peace.
11 – This he has done, as true noonday light. The light that came from above illuminated his heart and warmed his will with the fire of his love. Thus inflamed, he preached the Kingdom of God and converted the hearts of fathers to their children and fools to the prudence of the righteous and prepared a new people for the Lord throughout the world.
12 – His name is celebrated to the farthest reaches of the world, and the whole universe is filled with amazement at his admirable deeds. Therefore, my children and brothers, do not want to abandon yourselves to excessive sadness, because God, the father of orphans, will comfort you with his holy consolation. And if you weep, my brethren, weep for yourselves, and not for him.
13 – In fact, while we are in the fullness of our life we are in death, but he passed from death to life. And be filled with joy because, before he departed from us, like another Jacob, he blessed all his sons and forgave them all whatever faults one may have committed or thought against him.
14 – And now I announce to you a great joy, an extraordinary miracle. Such a portent has never been heard in the world except in the Son of God, who is Christ the Lord. Some time before his death, our brother and father appeared crucified, bearing imprinted on his body the five wounds, which are truly the stigmata of Christ. His hands and feet were pierced as if by nails penetrated on both sides, and they had scars from the black color of the nails. His side appeared to be pierced by a spear, and he often emitted drops of blood
15 – While he was alive he had a modest appearance and there was no beauty in his face: there was no member left in him that was not torn apart. His limbs were stiff, from the contraction of the nerves, as happens in a dead man. But, after his death, his face became beautiful, resplendent with admirable whiteness and consoling to behold. The limbs, previously rigid, became flexible and bendable here and there as they wished to arrange themselves, like a tender child.
16 – Therefore, brethren, bless the God of heaven and proclaim his greatness before all, for he has sent down his mercy upon us. Keep the memory of our father and brother Francis, to the praise and glory of the One who made him great among men and glorified him among angels. Pray for him, as he himself asked us before he died, and invoke him, so that God may also share with him in his holy grace. Amen.
17 – Our father and brother Francis returned to the Lord in the first hour of the night before October 4, on a Sunday. O you, then, dearest brethren, to whom this letter will reach, in imitation of the people of Israel in their weeping over Moses and Aaron, their illustrious leaders, let us give free rein to tears, for we have been deprived of the comfort of so great a father.
18 – Truly, it is a pious thing to share the joy of Francis, but it is also a pious thing to mourn Francis. It is a filial feeling to participate in his exultation, because he is not dead, but has gone out into the great market of heaven, carrying with him the bag of his money, and will return home at the full moon.
19 – But it is still like children to mourn the loss of Francesco. He, who passed among us, like Aaron, offering us new and old things from his treasure, and comforting us in all our tribulations, was taken out of our midst, and now we are truly orphans, without a father.
20 – But it is written: The poor are abandoned to you, you are the support of the orphan. Therefore, beloved brethren, all pray tirelessly that, if the little pitcher of clay was broken in the valley of the children of Adam, the Lord, who is the great potter, may deign to make another, which is worthy of honor and stands above the multitude of our family, and precede us to battle, like a true Maccabee.
21 – But, since it is not superfluous to pray for the dead, pray to the Lord for him. Every priest is to celebrate three Masses, every cleric is to recite the Psalter, every brother who is not a priest is to say five Pater noster. The clerics are to celebrate a solemn vigil in common. Amen.
Mira Circa Nos
Canonizing St. Francis of Assisi
Pope Gregory IX – 1228
22 – After the example of our father Abraham, this man forgot not only his country and acquaintances, but also his father’s house, to go to a land which the Lord had shown him by divine inspiration (Gen 12). Pushing aside any obstacle he pressed on to win the prize of his heavenly call (Phil. 3:14).
23 – Conforming himself to Him (Rom 8:29) who, though rich, for our sake became poor (II Cor 8:9), he unburdened himself of a heavy load of material possessions so as to pass easily through the narrow gate (Mt 7:13). He disbursed his wealth to the poor, so that his justice might endure forever (Ps 111:9).
24 – Uprooting his vices and like Jacob arising at the Lord’s command (Gen 35:1-11) he renounced … all which might distract those invited to the great feast (Lk 14:15-20), and took up the battle with the world, the flesh and the spiritual forces of wickedness on high. And as he had received the sevenfold grace of the Spirit and the help of the eight beatitudes of the Gospel, he journeyed to Bethel, the house of God, on a path which he had traced in the fifteen steps of the virtues mystically represented in the psalter (gradual psalms).
25 – After he had made of his heart an altar for the Lord, he offered upon it the incense of devout prayers to be taken up to the Lord at the hands of angels whose company he would soon join. Surely he sought not his own interests (Phil 2:21), but those of Christ, serving Him zealously like the proverbial bee. As the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at the full (Eccles. 50,6), he took in his hands a lamp with which to draw the humble by the example of his glorious deeds, and a trumpet wherewith to recall the shameless with stern and fearsome warnings from their wicked abandon.
26 – Thus strengthened by charity he courageously took possession of the Midianite camp (Judges 7:16-22), that is, the camp of those who contemptuously disregard the teaching of the Church, with the support of Him who encompassed the whole world by His authority, even while still cloistered in the Virgin’s womb. He captured the weapons on which the well-armed man trusted while guarding his house and parceling out his spoils (Lk 11:21-22), and he led captivity captive in submission to Jesus Christ (Eph 4:8).
27 – After defeating the threefold earthly enemy, he did violence to the kingdom of heaven and seized it by force (Mt 11:12). After many glorious battles in this life he triumphed over the world, and he who was knowingly unlettered and wisely foolish, happily returned to the Lord to take the first place before many others more learned. Plainly a life such as his, so holy, so passionate, so brilliant, was enough to win him a place in the Church Triumphant.
28 – Yet, because the Church Militant, which can only observe the outer appearances, does not presume to judge on its own authority those not sharing its actual state, it proposes for veneration as Saints only those whose lives on earth merited such, especially because an angel of Satan sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light (II Cor 11:14). In his generosity the omnipotent and merciful God has provided that the aforementioned Servant of Christ did come and serve Him worthily and commendably.
29 – Not permitting so great a light to remain hidden under a bushel, but wishing to put it on a lampstand to console those dwelling in the house of light (Mt 5:15), God declared through many brilliant miracles that his life has been acceptable to God and his memory should be honored by the Church Militant.
29 – Therefore, since the wondrous events of his glorious life are quite well known to us because of the great familiarity he had with us while we still occupied a lower rank, and since we are fully convinced by reliable witnesses of the many brilliant miracles, we and the flock entrusted to us, by the mercy of God, are confident of being assisted at his intercession and of having in heaven a patron whose friendship we enjoyed on earth.
30 – With the consultation and approval of our Brothers, we have decreed that he be enrolled in the catalogue of saints worthy of veneration.
31 – We decree that his birth be celebrated worthily and solemnly by the universal Church on the fourth of October, the day on which he entered the kingdom of heaven, freed from the prison of the flesh. Hence, in the Lord we beg, admonish and exhort all of you, we command you by this apostolic letter, that on this day reserved to honor his memory, you dedicate yourselves more intensely to the divine praises, and humbly to implore his patronage, so that through his intercession and merits you might be found worthy of joining his company with the help of Him who is blessed forever. Amen.
Peace and Blessings
Fr. Francis A. Sariego, O.F.M. Cap
Regional Spiritual Assistant
