From September 25 to October 3, 2026, a novena has been proposed: nine evenings of prayer culminating on the night Francis died, eight hundred years ago. This novena can be prayed in a church, a religious community\u2019s chapel, or around a dining room or kitchen table.<\/strong><\/p>\n Nine Around One<\/em><\/strong>: A Novena of Companions<\/em><\/strong> is now available in English, Spanish, Italian, and Polish on the resources page of FranciscanVoice.org and at VozFranciscana.org. Two booklets have been prepared for you. The first is a leader\u2019s book<\/a>, with every text printed in full, so that whoever leads never has to look anything up. There is also a participant\u2019s aid<\/a>: nine sheets, one for each evening, printed on both sides. No day of the week is printed anywhere in them, so they can be reused each year.<\/p>\n A Novena of Mourning Nine Buried Around Him The Prayer Friar Michael LASKY, From September 25 to October 3, 2026, a novena has been proposed: nine evenings of prayer culminating on the night Francis died, eight hundred years ago. This novena can be prayed in a church, a religious community\u2019s chapel, or around a dining room or kitchen table. Nine Around One: A Novena of Companions is now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,120,148],"tags":[2300],"class_list":["post-103037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-general-offices","category-gpic-en","category-news","tag-franciscan-centenary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103041,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103037\/revisions\/103041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>Novenas did not begin as preparation for a feast. They began as mourning: nine days during which the Church has always kept vigil beside her dead, and still does for a pope. This year, that older meaning guides our Novena of Companions<\/em>. The ninth evening is the night Francis of Assisi died, and his feast is celebrated the next morning, so we keep the wake and prepare for the feast during the same nine evenings. The ninth evening does not replace a transitus celebration, but offers an opportunity to commemorate the Transitus<\/em> for those who cannot attend one.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>On each evening of the novena, one of Francis\u2019 companions will speak: Sylvester, Bernard of Quintavalle, Lady Jacoba, Masseo, William of England, Angelo Tancredi, John of England, Rufino, and Leo. All of them are buried near Francis\u2019 tomb, either in the crypt or nearby, in the Lower Church of the Papal Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Each evening of this novena follows the four movements of prayer expressed by Clare in her letter to Agnes of Prague: we gaze<\/em> by listening to a companion, consider<\/em> by holding one word of the Church\u2019s social teaching, contemplate<\/em> by sitting with the Scripture and the silence that follows it, and imitate<\/em> by carrying one small thing away and doing it before we meet again.
\nIn addition, a verse of the Canticle of the Creatures<\/em> is added each evening, in the order in which Francis wrote it, until, on the ninth evening, the assembly has the whole poem before them to sing, as it was sung for Francis at the moment of his transitus<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nGeneral Delegate for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"