From 5 to 9 October 2026, the Custodians of the convents of the Custody of the Holy Land are gathered in Assisi for several days of formation. The meeting takes place in the year in which the Franciscan family celebrates the eighth centenary of the Transitus of Saint Francis, his passage "from this world to the Father".
The friars are accompanied by the Custos, Fr. Francesco Ielpo, and by the moderator of ongoing formation, Fr. Diego Dalla Gassa. Together, they are retracing the life of Francis in the very places that, more than any others, preserve his memory. The guiding theme of these days is that of wounds, those that life and our fragility inevitably inflict on each of us. Guiding the process from a methodological perspective are Fr. Sergio Carettoni and Fabio Migliorini of "Missione Emmaus International".
Looking at the experience of Francis and the Gospel, the Custodians reflect on how to care for their own wounds and those of the brothers entrusted to them. The aim is to discover how these wounds can become an opportunity for human and spiritual, human and Christian growth. Among the speakers is the Bishop of Assisi, Bishop Felice Accrocca, one of the leading scholars and historians of Franciscanism and the Writings of Saint Francis. Fr. Pietro Maranesi, a Capuchin friar, lecturer and author of numerous publications on Franciscanism, offered an in depth reading of True and Perfect Joy, considered alongside the Letter to a Minister. Both texts reveal the same perspective, an open heart, a door always wide open to one's brother. Fr. Francesco Piloni, former provincial minister of the Friars Minor of Umbria and Sardinia, helped the Custodians explore an essential instrument of fraternal life, the conventual chapter. This is so that it may truly become a theological place of discernment and decision making, and of accompanying the life of the fraternity.
The reflection was also sustained by the particular grace of the quintessential Franciscan places, the Basilica of Saint Francis, the Hermitage of the Carceri, the Porziuncola and the Church of San Damiano. These are places to which one must always return to draw from the sources of the charism. The Custodians leave them to return to the Holy Land, to the fraternities they are called to serve and accompany.
