Siena celebrates the eighth centenary of the Little Testament of St. Francis

On Sunday, March 8, the city of Siena celebrated the VIII Centenary of the Little Testament of Siena, written by St. Francis in April-May 1226, when death seemed imminent. It was an intense day of pilgrimage, prayer and Eucharistic celebration that brought together friars, faithful and friends in living memory of the last words of the Poor Man. 

The celebration was born from the collaboration between the Archdiocese of Siena – which is commemorating the Centenary throughout the year –, the local parish where the Alberino chapel is located, a place that tradition recognizes as the one that hosted Francis and his companions, and the Convent and Basilica of the Observance, entrusted since 2007 to the Friars of the Franciscan Province of Saints Francis and James in Mexico. 

Present were the Archbishop of Siena, Cardinal Augusto Paolo Lojudice, the Minister General, Br. Massimo Fusarelli, the Vicar General, Br. Ignacio Ceja, friars of the General Curia and the Province of Tuscany. 

In the early afternoon, the numerous participants met in the historic Church of St. Francis, held by the Friars Minor Conventual, where a moment of prayer and adoration began the pilgrimage on foot, which wound along the streets of the city to the chapel of the Alberino, where the memory of the Testament became more alive and intense. The journey continued towards the Basilica of the Observance, where a prayer vigil prepared everyone for the solemn Eucharistic celebration presided over by Cardinal Lojudice. 

During the Mass, the Minister General gave the homily, interweaving the Gospel of the Samaritan woman – with her search for meaning and the encounter with the face of Christ – with the path that Francis proposes through the three recommendations of the Testament: mutual love, poverty and obedience to the Church. These three words marked the stages of the pilgrimage and were reinterpreted in the celebration as a timely invitation for fraternal life and the mission of the Order. 

The wide participation of the faithful, friars and representatives of the Diocese gave the day an atmosphere of joy and gratitude, in the sign of a gift that remains alive and current after eight centuries. 

The Little Testament of Siena

«Write that I bless all my friars, who are now in this religion and those who will enter it until the end of the world. And since, because of weakness and the suffering of illness, I cannot speak, I briefly express my will to my brothers in these three words. 
That is: as a sign and memory of my blessing and my testament, 
always love one another, 
Let them always love and observe Our Lady Holy Poverty, and always be faithful and submissive to the prelates and to all the clerics of Holy Mother Church.»