CONCLUSION

THE BLESSING OF HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

Let whoever has observed these things, be filled full in heaven with the blessing of the Most High, the heavenly Father, and on earth let them be filled full with the blessing of His Beloved [dilecti] Son, with the Most Holy Spirit and with all the Virtues of Heaven and all the Saints.  And I, Friar Francis, your little poor one and slave, as much as I am able, confirm for you inside and out this most holy blessing, which you have with all the Virtues of Heaven and all the Saints now and unto the ages of ages. Amen. (The Testament of St. Francis).

Indeed, wholly [prorsus] abrogating the ancient law of Leo X, We freely, with the passing of seventh century after the death of Francis, approve and confirm this Rule of the Third Order Regular of the Seraphic Father Francis with Our apostolic authority:  on that account [id] We plainly will have complete trust that the Tertiaries Regular, and all those who, even if they do not have solemn vows by arrangement [ex instituto], will nevertheless conduct [agunt] a religious life, with Francis as (their) leader, strengthened by the spirit of (this) new Law, in that distinguished [egregie] manner (which) Our Predecessor Pope Benedict XV wrote about, that for all the other Tertiary members, who remain involved with the business and cares of the world, they may be as an example unto the cultivation of Christian perfection, and may continue to go ahead  of them as leaders in the quest for sempiternal life [ad sempiternam salutem quaerendam].¹

We command these things, decreeing, that the present Letters and Statutes inserted and enclosed in them, be and remain [exstare ac permanere] firm, valid and always efficacious, and that they receive [sortiri] and obtain their own full and entire effect, and that they approve those thing to which they pertain [spectant] or could pertain afterwards, now and for the longest [amplissime] time; and so it must be rightly judged and defined, and becomes ineffectual [irritum] from now on and void [inane], if anything otherwise concerning these things, by whoever, with whatever authority, knowingly or unknowingly happened to attempt it.  Not withstanding contraries of whatever kind, even those worthy of special and individual mention.  Moreover We will, that these Letters, copied and excerpted, even printed, subscribed by the hand of any public Notary and fortified with the seal of a man constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, be shown wholly [prorsus] the same faith, (with) which these very present ones are regarded, if they were exhibited or shown.

Given in Rome at St. Peter's, on the 4th day of the month of October, on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, in the year 1927, the sixth of Our Pontificate.

C. Card. LAURENTI,
Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious

DE SPECIALI MANDAT SS.MI

FR. ANDREAS CARD. FRÜHWIRTH,

Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church

Ioseph Wilpert, Protonotary Apostolic, Deacon.

Dominicus Jorio, Protonotary Apostolic.

(L + P.)

Registered in Canc. Apostolica, vol., XXXVI, n. 87.