4 minutes with Mary and St Francis - Indulgence of the Portiuncula

Br STÉPHANE MILOVITCH, ofm
Director of the Cultural Heritage Office - Custody of the Holy Land
"We are in the church of St Saviour in Jerusalem, in front of one of the side altars of the church. To begin our journey of Marian devotion, we present this painting, an oil on canvas depicting St Francis of Assisi kneeling before the apparition of Jesus and Mary. The episode took place after the miracle of the roses, evoked in the painting by the red and white flowers depicted on the steps where St Francis is kneeling. It was on this occasion that Jesus granted the saint the indulgence of the Portiuncula.
This painting that we have here in Jerusalem is a copy of a painting by Bartolomé Esteba Murillo, one of the most representative figures of Spanish Baroque painting, painted around 1667 and kept in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The copy we have here in the church was made in the 1940s by a Franciscan Missionary Sister of Mary."