Saint Bonaventure

Saint Bonaventure, whose memorial is today in the Ordinary Form¹, received his (much delayed) doctorate in theology in Paris in 1257, in the same class as Saint Thomas Aquinas. Later that same year, he was elected Minister General of the Franciscan Order.

Bonaventure spent much of his life as a theologian at the university, living in poverty as a Franciscan friar.

He developed such a formidable body of written work that he is now a Doctor of the Church and is known as the Seraphic Doctor.

Pope Gregory X appointed him a Cardinal some twenty-five years after Bonaventure received his doctorate. The story goes that the Pope’s legates brought the red galero, the hat that remains the symbol of being a Cardinal², to the friary where Bonaventure lived.

Bonaventure was washing dishes, and he told the esteemed gentlemen to hang the hat on a tree and wait in the garden until he was finished.

For today’s memorial, we can do no better than to listen to the words of the Seraphic Doctor himself, from today’s Office of Readings.

Christ is both the way and the door. Christ is the staircase and the vehicle, like the throne of mercy over the Ark of the Covenant, and the mystery hidden from the ages. A man should turn his full attention to this throne of mercy, and should gaze at him hanging on the cross, full of faith, hope and charity, devoted, full of wonder and joy, marked by gratitude, and open to praise and jubilation. Then such a man will make with Christ a pasch, that is, a passing-over. Through the branches of the cross he will pass over the Red Sea, leaving Egypt and entering the desert. There he will taste the hidden manna, and rest with Christ in the sepulcher, as if he were dead to things outside. He will experience, as much as is possible for one who is still living, what was promised to the thief who hung beside Christ: Today you will be with me in paradise.

For this passover to be perfect, we must suspend all the operations of the mind and we must transform the peak of our affections, directing them to God alone. This is a sacred mystical experience. It cannot be comprehended by anyone unless he surrenders himself to it; nor can he surrender himself to it unless he longs for it; nor can he long for it unless the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent into the world, should come and inflame his innermost soul. Hence the Apostle says that this mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit.

If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervor and glowing love. The fire is God, and the furnace is in Jerusalem, fired by Christ in the ardor of his loving passion. Only he understood this who said: My soul chose hanging and my bones death. Anyone who cherishes this kind of death can see God, for it is certainly true that: No man can look upon me and live.

Let us die, then, and enter into the darkness, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over with the crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that, when the Father has shown himself to us, we can say with Philip: It is enough. We may hear with Paul: My grace is sufficient for you; and we can rejoice with David, saying: My flesh and my heart fail me, but God is the strength of my heart and my heritage for ever. Blessed be the Lord for ever, and let all the people say: Amen. Amen!

From the Journey of the Mind to God, by Saint Bonaventure

1. Yesterday in the Extraordinary Form and in my Benedictine Breviary. No, I don’t know why they changed it. The calendar changes drive me up a wall. Today, my monastic breviary celebrates Saint Heinrich.
2. Even if nobody wears them anymore.