St. Bonaventure
(1221 – 1274)
Doctor Seraphicus
Giovanni di Fidanza was an Italian Franciscan bishop, cardinal, theologian, philosopher, and is a Doctor of the Church.
In his youth, he was saved from an untimely death by the prayers of Francis of Assisi.
He entered the Franciscan Order.
He studied at the University of Paris under Alexander of Hale & held the Franciscan chair at Paris.
He was friends with Thomas Aquinas
He successfully defended his Order against the reproaches of the anti-mendicant party.
He wrote on almost every subject treated by the Scholastics and his writings are substantial.
He is considered, along with Thomas Aquinas, as the greatest of the Doctors of the Church.
Biography of St. Bonaventure in the Breviary:
Bonaventure was born at Bagnorea in Tuscany. Still a child, he was smitten by a mortal sickness, and his mother vowed that he should be consecrated to the order of Blessed Francis if he recovered. He came safely through the sickness at the Saints prayer; and consequently, when a young man, he determined to enter the Institute of the Friars Minor.
He was put under the instruction of Alexander of Hales, and became so eminent for learning that at the end of seven years he obtained the master's degree at Paris, and lectured publicly with great applause on the Books of the Sentences, which later in life he explained by lucid commentaries. He attained great eminence not only in knowledge and learning, but also in purity of life, innocence, humility, meekness, contempt for earthly things and desire for those of Heaven; and he was manifestly worthy of being held as an example of perfection. By Blessed Thomas Aquinas, to whom he was bound by close friendship, he was called a saint, and when Saint Thomas found him one day writing the life of St. Francis, he said: “let us allow one saint to labor for another.
He was in kindled with a great flame of Divine Love, and was moved with particular affection for the passion of our lord, which was his constant matter of meditation, and for the Virgin Mother of God, to whom he wholly vowed himself. He sought moreover, with all his power to excite a like ardor in others both by word and example, and to increase it by his books and other writings. Hence arose that sweetness of disposition, unction in speech and open-hearted charity to all men, by which he succeeded in binding the hearts of all so closely to himself.
For these reasons, when scarcely 35 years old, he was elected at Rome, by acclamation, Minister General of his Order; and he held the office which he had taken up for 20 years, with remarkable prudence and praise-worthy holiness. He made a number of regulations suited to the maintenance of regular discipline and the extension of the order: and he defended it, as well as the other mendicant orders with great success against the charges of calumniators.
By blessed Gregory X he was summoned to the Council of Lyons and created Cardinal, Bishop of Albano. He steered the Council successfully through the arduous tasks it had undertaken: as a result of which the disputes excited by schismatics were brought to an end. and the dogmas of the Church of indicated. In the midst of these labors, to the great sorrow of all who knew him, he died in 1274, in the 53rd year of his age, and his funeral was adorned by the presence of the whole council, and of the Roman pontiff himself. He became renowned for many great miracles, and Xystus V Deservedly bestowed on him the title of the Seraphic Doctor.
Dom Prosper's Commentary
Dom Prosper's commentary on our saint today is quite lengthy (and also very beautifully poetic!) Instead of sharing all of it, I only want to focus on his comments on the friendship between Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, because I find it so touching:
"It would be impossible to understand right the history of the 13th century were we to forget the prophetic vision, wherein our servants, Dominic and Francis, that they might by their powerful union, bring back to Jesus the wandering human race. What a spectacle for Angels when, on the Morrow of the apparition, the two saints met and embraced! “Thou art my companion, we will run side by side,” said the descendant of the Guzman's to the poor man of Assisi; “let us keep together, and no man will be able to prevail against us.”
"These words might well have been the motto of their noble sons, Thomas and Bonaventure. The star which shone over the head of St. Dominic shed its bright rays on Thomas; the seraph who imprinted the stigma in the flesh of St. Francis touched with his fiery wing the soul of Bonaventure; yet both, like their incomparable fathers, had but one end in view; to draw men by science and love to that eternal life which consists in knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent."
"Both were burning in shining lamps, blending their flames in the heavens, in proportions which no mortal could distinguish here below; nevertheless, Eternal Wisdom has willed that the church on Earth should borrow more especially light from Thomas and fire from Bonaventure, with that we might hear from each of them the workings of Wisdom, the one bond even on Earth of their union of thought."
More Artistic Depictions of St. Bonaventure
"While still very young he was according to custom, sent after the first years of his religious life, to the celebrated University of Paris, where he soon won all hearts by his angelic manners; and the Great Alexander of Hales, struck with admiration of the union of so many qualities, said to him that it seemed as if in him Adam had not sinned. As a lofty mountain whose head is lost in the clouds and from whose foot run fertilizing waters far and wide, brother Alexander himself, according to the expression of the Sovereign Pontiff coming seemed at that time to contain within himself the living fountain of Paradise, whence the river not only would he, the irrefragable doctor, and the Doctor of doctors, give up his chair in a short time to the new,, that he would hereafter derive his greatest glory from being called father and master by this illustrious disciple." (Dom Prosper)
"Placed in such a position at so early in age, Bonaventure could say of divine wisdom: "It is she that has taught me all things; she taught me the knowledge of God and of his works, justice and virtues, the subtleties of speeches and the solutions of arguments.”
"The young master already merited his name of Seraphic Doctor by regarding science as merely a means to love, and declaring that the light which illuminates the mind is barren and useless unless it penetrates to the heart, where alone wisdom rests and feasts. St Anthony tells us also that in him every truth grasped by the intellect passed through the affections, and thus became prayer and divine praise. “His aim,” says another historian, “was to burn with love, to kindle himself first of the divine fire, and afterwards to inflame others. Careless of praise or renown, anxious only to regulate his life and actions, he would feign burn and not only shine; he would be fire, in order to approach nearer to God by becoming more like Him who is fire. Albeit, as fire is not without light, so is he also at the same time a shining torch in the House of God; but his special claim to our praise is that all the light at his command he gathered to feed the flame of Divine Love." (H. Sedulius)
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Bonaventure enjoyed especial veneration even during his lifetime because of his stainless character and of the miracles attributed to him. It was Alexander of Hales who said that Bonaventure seemed to have escaped the curse of Adam's sin. And the story of St. Thomas visiting Bonaventure's cell while the latter was writing the life of St. Francis and finding him in an ecstasy is well known. "Let us leave a saint to work for a saint", said the Angelic Doctor as he withdrew.
When, in 1434, Bonaventure's remains were translated to the new church erected at Lyons in honor of St. Francis, his head was found in a perfect state of preservation, the tongue being as red as in life. This miracle not only moved the people of Lyons to choose Bonaventure as their special patron, but also gave a great impetus to the process of his canonization. Dante, writing long before, had given expression to the popular mind by placing Bonaventure among the saints in his "Paradiso", and no canonization was ever more ardently or universally desired than that of Bonaventure. That its inception was so long delayed was mainly due to the deplorable dissensions within the order after Bonaventure's death. Finally on 14 April, 1482, Bonaventure was enrolled in the catalogue of the saints by Sixtus IV.
In 1562, Bonaventure's shrine was plundered by the Huguenots and the urn containing his body was burned in the public square. His head was preserved through the heroism of the superior, who hid it at the cost of his life but it disappeared during the French Revolution and every effort to discover it has been in vain.
Bonaventure was inscribed among the principal Doctors of the Church by Sixtus V, 14 March, 1557.
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