This year the Church marks 800 years since St. Francis of Assisiʼs death at the age of 44 — his “Transitus,” as Franciscans call it. Pope Leo declared a special Franciscan Jubilee Year from Jan. 10, 2026, to Jan. 10, 2027, inviting Catholics to visit churches and places linked to Francis’ spirituality, love of animals, and devotion to the poor.
“The jubilee year provides us the opportunity to be more than a tourist … to be a pilgrim, joining the millions of pilgrims expected in Assisi for the jubilee, with even more pilgrims who will travel to Franciscan churches throughout the world,“ explained Father John Puodziunas, the new Franciscan commissary of the Holy Land USA based in Washington, D.C. “The pilgrim returns changed … they see themselves, their world, God differently.”
A must-see is the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, a vast church overlooking his Umbrian hometown. In the crypt, pilgrims rest their hands on the saint’s neo-Romanesque tomb, where a votive lamp softly illuminates the dim space and only the shuffle of footsteps breaks the silence.
In February and March, many viewed his skeletal remains in the basilica,
