Franciscan saints & blesseds: July 2010 Archives

San Bonaventure2 jpg"As for yourself, be self-possessed in all circumstances.... I am already being poured out like a libation." --From the Second Letter of Paul to Timothy, and from the Gospel of Matthew.

When the papal legates came to the Franciscan convent, bearing the cardinal's red hat of the see of Albano, they found Brother Bonaventure doing the dishes outside. In dishwater up to his elbows, the story goes, he pointed to the branch of a nearby tree and said, "Hang it there." Self-possession is all right up to a point. Myself, I'd have poured out that magic detergent as a libation, and have made a dive for the "merited crown reserved for me."

Saint Bonaventure had reason to be self-possessed. He was the general of the Franciscans at thirty-nine and curial cardinal a year before he died at fifty-nine. Just a year or so before this, his friend Aquinas had refused the archbishopric of Naples. And Saint Albert the Great, Aquinas' teacher in Cologne, died as the Archbishop of Regensberg.

All three men I've named were later designated doctors of the Church and all three were mendicant friars. Is there any realtion between their state in life and the theological eminence --or even their office as teachers of the least of the commandments? The answer, I think, is yes and no. The first concern of the early friars was not intellectual. It was to break out of the mold of static institutions which were impeding the spread of the Gospel. Monasticism meant hugh landholding --a princedom for the abbot-- as witness Monte Cassino where Saint Thomas did his grammar and high school. The parish clergy were illiterate. The monks who could read and preach were immobile. Francis, Dominic, the varying reform-fashioners of the Augustinians, the Carmelites, the Gilbertines, all decided to "get the Church moving." They brought the monastery into the marketplace; they preached sermons in the streets to octogenarians who had never heard a sermon before. They even invaded the new universities --already the preserve of the secular clergy. They were poor men, and let the light of their goodness and dedication shine. They became students perforce because the great charity which men of that time needed to have shown them was broken bread of God's word in all its purity and strength,

What the worker priests, the little brothers and sisters of Charles de Foucauld, lay missionaries and secular institutes are in our day, mendicant friars were in theirs. All human institutions, groupings excluding the family, tend to outlive their usefulness and die. That could include today's relgious orders as we know them. New needs arise. But some things are constant: charity, stability, chastity, wisdom, obedience, utter fidelity to the Master's message.

Gerard Sloyan
Homily, NOYP, 197-99

Saint Bonavenure

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San jpgThe feast of the great theologian and Doctor of the Church, Saint Bonaventure, is observed today. A theologian points us toward what is revealed by God, and so a thought of his helpful for us today.

We have been brought to life through Christ. The apostle makes this known in [the] passage when he says: "He has brought us to life together with Christ." The apostle says this because God brings is to life in Christ, with Christ, through Christ, and according to Christ.

In the first place, God has brought us to life in Christ, because he has shared our mortality of life in his person, according to that passage in John: "As the Father has life in himself, even so he has given to the Son as life in himself" (5:26). Therefore, if the Son has life in himself, while he has taken to himself our mortality, he has joined us to the true and immortal life, and through this he has brought us to life in himself.

He has brought us to life with Christ, while Christ himself, who was life, lived among mortal men... So while he was seen on earth and lived among men (Bar 3:28), God brought us to life with Christ, when he made us live with him.

 He also brought us to life through Christ, when he snatched us from death through his death, according to that passage of the First Epistle of Peter: "Christ also died once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us back to God. Put to death indeed in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit" (3:18). When Christ laid down his life for us, God brought the dead human race to life through him.

Finally, he brought us to life according to Christ when he guided us through the path of life according to his example, according to that passage of the psalmist: "You have known to me the paths of life when he gave us faith, hope, charity, and the gifts of grace. To these he added the commands according to which Christ himself walked and in which the path of life consists. It is according to these that Christ has taught us to walk. God has brought us to life according to Christ because he guides his imitators to life.

Saint Bonaventure (+1274)

Blessed Junípero Serra

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Bl Junípero Serra.jpg


God most High, Your servant Junipero Serra brought the gospel of Christ to the peoples of Mexico and California and firmly established the Church among them. By his intercession, and through the example of his apostolic zeal, inspire us to be faithful witness of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.


Blessed Junipero was born at Petra, Island of Majorca, November 24, 1713; he died at Monterey, California, August 28, 1784. Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988.


About the author

Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

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This page is a archive of entries in the Franciscan saints & blesseds category from July 2010.

Franciscan saints & blesseds: June 2010 is the previous archive.

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