This was Thursday, October 1.[20]
They laid him back upon his bed, and, conforming to his wishes, they again sang to him the Canticle of the Sun.
At times he added his voice to those of his Brothers,[21] and came back with preference to Psalm 142, Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi.[22]
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With my voice I cry unto the Lord, With my voice I implore the Lord, I pour out my complaint before him, I tell him all my distress. When my spirit is cast down within me, Thou knowest my path. Upon the way where I walk They have laid a snare for me, Cast thine eyes to the right and look! No one recognizes me; All refuge is lost for me, No one takes thought for my soul. Lord, unto thee I cry; I say: Thou art my refuge, My portion in the land of the living. Be attentive to my cries! For I am very unhappy. Deliver me from those who pursue me! For they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of its prison That I may praise thy name. The righteous shall compass me about When thou hast done good unto me! |
The visits of death are always solemn, but the end of the just is the most moving sursum corda that we can hear on earth. The hours flowed by and the Brothers would not leave him. "Alas, good Father," said one of them to him, unable longer to contain himself, "your children are going to lose you, and be deprived of the true light which lightened them: think of the orphans you are leaving and forgive all their faults, give to them all, present and absent, the joy of your holy benediction."
"See," replied the dying man, "God is calling me. I forgive all my Brothers, present and absent, their offences and faults, and absolve them according to my power. Tell them so, and bless them all in my name."[23]
Then crossing his arms he laid his hands upon those who surrounded him. He did this with peculiar emotion to Bernard of Quintavalle: "I desire," he said, "and with all my power I urge whomsoever shall be minister-general of the Order, to love and honor him as myself; let the provincials and all the Brothers act toward him as toward me."[24]
He thought not only of the absent Brothers but of the future ones; love so abounded in him that it wrung from him a groan of regret for not seeing all those who should enter the Order down to the end of time, that he might lay his hand upon their brows, and make them feel those things that may only be spoken by the eyes of him who loves in God.[25]
He had lost the notion of time; believing that it was still Thursday he desired to take a last meal with his disciples. Some bread was brought, he broke it and gave it to them, and there in the poor cabin of Portiuncula, without altar and without a priest, was celebrated the Lord's Supper.[26]
A Brother read the Gospel for Holy Thursday, Ante diem festum Paschæ: "Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come to go from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world he loved them unto the end."