Since this rite of intensification has become an annual expectation for most friars, sisters, and seculars, a consideration of its origins and meanings seems worthwhile and timely. It is surprising that no historical study of the Transitus has been undertaken in the past three decades when so much ritual flux has been the order of the day. Questions begin to emerge when Franciscans with a living memory of the pre-conciliar era think critically about the Transitus. In the asking of such questions, very telling meanings and values come to the fore which are tacitly operative in the rite. Non-verbals often yield more significant data in ritual analysis than the verbal elements.
Ritual texts are important, but rituals are more than texts.
Only within the lived context of the people who enact the rite do the ritual texts take on meanings which spill over the texts and into others forms of ritual expression. At times the non-verbals disclose more meanings than the verbals. However, such an analysis would take us far afield. These initial steps in thematizing the Transitus as an object of ritual studies are best limited to the origins of the rite, its structure, and its core components. A sampling of rites from a variety of available sources which recall elements operative in pre-conciliar are exposed here in this first part of the article.