Around 200 members and volunteers of the Order of Malta gathered on Saturday 12 September at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi for the traditional annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Philermos. This year, the pilgrimage took on special significance as it coincided with the Franciscan Jubilee Year, proclaimed by Pope Leo XIV to mark the 800th anniversary of the death of St Francis.

The pilgrimage was led by Grand Commander Fra’ Emmanuel Rousseau, in the presence of the Receiver of the Common Treasue, Fra’ Francis J. Vassallo, Fra’ Nicola Tegoni, President of the Order of Malta’s Italian Pilgrimages Foundation, Cardinals Gianfranco Ghirlanda and Silvano Tomasi, the Prelate of the Order of Malta, Monsignor Luis Manuel Cuña Ramos, the Grand Prior of Rome, Fra’ Roberto Viazzo, and the Grand Prior of Naples and Sicily, Fra’ Nicolò Custoza.

Following the entrance procession into the Basilica, the pilgrims recited the Holy Rosary and took part in the jubilee rites, followed by the Eucharistic celebration at the Papal Altar. At the end of Mass, in keeping with tradition, the participants passed through the Porziuncola and proceeded in procession to the Chapel of Our Lady of Philermos to venerate the icon.

In his homily, Cardinal Ghirlanda emphasised the centrality of Christ in the life of every Christian and the example of Mary and Joseph, whose faith made them open to accepting God’s will. Turning then to the figure of St Francis, he recalled how Christ was ‘the absolute centre of his life’, which was radically transformed by his encounter with the leper, culminating in the gift of the stigmata. ‘In this church dedicated to Our Lady and facing the Porziuncola,’ concluded Cardinal Ghirlanda, ‘we cannot help but be moved and allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit to a conversion of the heart’, invoking the intercession of Our Lady, St Joseph, St Francis and Blessed Gerard, founder of the Order.

The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli holds particular significance for the spirituality of the Order of Malta: as well as housing the Porziuncola, the central site of St Francis’s life and spiritual experience, it also houses a reproduction of the Icon of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Philermos, patroness of the Order.