{"id":33610,"date":"2016-07-15T15:14:10","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T19:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/?p=33610"},"modified":"2016-07-15T15:18:35","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T19:18:35","slug":"st-bonaventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2016\/07\/st-bonaventure\/","title":{"rendered":"St Bonaventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"St<\/a>We are honoring the memory of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (ca. 1221-1274) today. One of the great scholastic theologians and pastors of the Church. I hope the Thomists won’t get mad!<\/p>\n

There are many who make the claim that the best general introduction to the\u00a0thought of Bonaventure is Sister Ilia Delio’s, Simply Bonaventure<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(New City Press, 2nd ed.) And I agree. But if you need another resource, consider this encyclopedia entry<\/strong><\/a> (2005\/2013).<\/p>\n

Bonaventure, having joined the new movement of Friars in Paris,\u00a0his priestly and academic career was centered\u00a0at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of Paris from 1248-1257. By this time he garnered the attention of his brothers and churchmen at large. He was elected General Minister of the Order governed his brothers for 17 years. It may be said that after the early days of Francis and the early leadership of the Franciscan movement Bonaventure makes his Order credible and and reliable. Thereafter, Bonaventure was elected to\u00a0serve the Roman Pontiff\u00a0as Cardinal-Bishop of Albano and expert\u00a0at the Second Council of Lyons; At Lyons, he died during the Council.<\/p>\n

The scholarship on Saint Bonaventure reveals to us that he emphasized all learning must<\/span><\/strong> serve the ultimate goal of human life: communion with God. His work is greatly trinitarian and Chriwstocentric. For him, and for us, Christ is the one and true Master! This is a critical point for knowing today’s saint: learning is not meant for self-aggrandizement but to help a person realize that he or she is on a journey toward union with a loving God –a communio theology. You could say with seriousness that to do otherwise is to\u00a0reduce theology and learning to absurd levels and miss the point of knowing, loving and serving the Blessed Trinity.<\/p>\n

Consider this passage from his treatise, “The Tree of Life”:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou soul devoted to God,
\nwhoever you are, run
\nwith living desire
\nto this Fountain of life and light
\nand with the innermost power of your heart
\ncry out to him:<\/p>\n

\u2018O inaccessible beauty of the most high God
\nand the pure brightness of the eternal light,
\nlife vivifying all life,
\nlight illumining every light,
\nand keeping in perpetual splendor
\na thousand times a thousand lights
\nbrilliantly shining
\nbefore the throne of your divinity
\nsince the primeval dawn!<\/p>\n

O eternal and inaccessible,
\nclear and sweet stream from the fountain
\nhidden from the eyes of all mortals,
\nwhose depth is without bottom,
\nwhose height is without limit,
\nwhose breadth cannot be bounded,
\nwhose purity cannot be disturbed.<\/p>\n

From this Fountain
\nflows the stream of the oil of gladness,
\nwhich gladdens the city of God,
\nand the powerful fiery torrent,
\nthe torrent, I say, of the pleasure of God,
\nfrom which the guest at the heavenly banquet
\ndrink to joyful inebriation
\nand sing without ceasing
\nhymns of jubilation.<\/p>\n

Anoint us
\nwith this sacred oil and refresh
\nwith the longed-for waters of this torrent
\nthe thirsting throat of our parched hearts
\nso that amid shouts of joy and thanksgiving
\nwe may sing to you
\na canticle of praise,
\nproving by experience that
\nwith you is the fountain of life,
\nand in your light we will see
\nlight (see Ps 36:10).\u201d<\/p>\n

This image of Saint\u00a0Bonaventure, is depicted by the Veronese painter, Paolo Morando Cavazzola (1486-1522). Few medieval depictions of Bonaventure exist; Bonaventure\u00a0was not canonized until 1482.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are honoring the memory of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (ca. 1221-1274) today. One of the great scholastic theologians and pastors of the Church. I hope the Thomists won’t get mad! There are many who make the claim that the best general introduction to the\u00a0thought of Bonaventure is Sister Ilia Delio’s, Simply Bonaventure\u00a0(New City Press, … Continue reading St Bonaventure<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1770,2207],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33610"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33615,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33610\/revisions\/33615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}