Journey into God by St. Bonaventure

I was born in Bagnoregio in the year 1217. My father, Giovanni di Fidanza, was a physician. My mother’s name was Maria di Ritello. When they baptized me, they gave me the name of my father, Giovanni. I was a post-conciliar person, born right after the Fourth Lateran Council. I was born when the Franciscan Order was peaking in its early development. The friars had opened a friary, in my home town, where I received my preliminary education. When I was a boy, about 11 years old, I was snatched from the jaws of death and restored to perfect health by Saint Francis’ invocation and merits. I recognize that God saved my life through him, and I realize that I experienced God’s power in my very person. ²   And when I turned 17, in the year 1234, I found myself enrolled in the University of Paris in the faculty of arts, a long way from my beloved Bagnoregio. 

But life in Paris began to take hold of me. More and more I felt myself come under the spell of the Poor Man of Assisi. And by the year 1243 I found myself a novice in this same Order. By 1248 I was licensed as a bachelor of Scripture. I lectured on the Bible for the next two years. From 1250 to 1252 I lectured on the Sentences ³ of Peter Lombard and wrote a Commentary on the Sentences. It was in 1253 or ’54, I cannot remember exactly, that I became a master in theology and was designated to occupy the same chair which my brother, Alexander of Hales, held as master of the Franciscan school of theology.

And news traveled quickly even in my day. We heard in Paris of tensions in the Order between those who wanted to follow the ideals of Francis in stark simplicity and those who favored adaptation as the Order expanded. The news got worse, because some friars espoused the teachings of Joachim of Fiore. Rumors reached us, too, that our general minister, John of Parma, was influenced by Joachimism. It was right after these rumors reached Paris, that the bottom fell out of my life, my academic life.

Pope Alexander IV had secretly ordered John of Parma to resign his office as general minister. I was rather sad for John was a good man, well-loved by the brothers. Another bit of news, no longer a rumor but a fact, reached us in Paris. When John resigned, he suggested my name as his successor. So on 2 February in the year 1257, I was elected the seventh general minister of the Order of Friars Minor, exactly 31 years after Francis had died.

I was 40 years old. I guess, you could say I was in mid-life and I wasn’t really ready for what lay ahead of me. However, I jumped right in, did the one thing, I knew best: I wrote. I composed a letter to all the provincial ministers. Let me tell you a bit about this letter, for I believe it was a lack of response from the friars to this letter that led me to LaVerna panting for peace. I began the journey of my own soul into God.

I decided to visit Italy, France, Germany and England. But before going, I had to deal with the man who had been my predecessor in the Order as general minister, John of Parma. John was accused of the heresy of Joachimism. I liked John very much. The brothers liked him. But I’m bound to act. How can I deal with such an obviously good man? Even Cardinal Ottobono is pleading with me for leniency. I know what I’ll do. I’ll send him to Greccio where he can live out his years in peace. It will look like imprisonment, but at least he’ll be alive and taken care of by the brothers.

I had been content with my work at the University. I never asked to be thrust into the position of general minister. I was in my middle years, still full of energy and ideas. But this ministry to the friars as their minister drained me of all my zeal. So in October of 1259, I found myself unsettled, disturbed and “seeking this peace with panting spirit (so) I withdrew to Mount LaVerna, seeking a place of quiet and desiring to find there peace of spirit.” I wrote out my reflections, The Journey of (my) Soul Into God.

Coming down from this glorious mountain, I was rested and fortified in my being for what was ahead of me in the new year 1260, namely a general chapter which we held at Narbonne. We were in desperate need of a thorough revision of the Order’s legislation, which task we assumed by writing a new set of Constitutions. And if this writing was not enough, the same chapter commissioned me to compose another biography of Saint Francis which would supersede and replace all that had been written thus far. It was at the general chapter of Paris, in the year 1266, that the brothers ordered all former biographies about Saint Francis to be destroyed, establishing my work as the Order’s official biography.

One day in the year 1273, I was in the kitchen of one of our friaries washing dishes  ¹⁸ when the news arrived that I was made a cardinal and summoned to join the papal curia in autumn of that same year. I was consecrated Bishop of Albano in November 1273 at Lyon. That winter I participated in the Council of Lyon and the general chapter of the Order in May 1274. I resigned at the chapter for illness was upon me. And Sister Death came to meet me here at Lyon on 15 July in the year 1274. I was 57 years old.

Before my death one of my friars approached me with the question: can only the learned become saints? I replied: “ ‘If God gives (one) only the grace to love, that is enough.’ Giles asked: ‘So a dunce can love God as much as a doctor?’ The graduate of Paris answered: ‘A poor little old woman can love (God) even more than a doctor of theology.’ Then Giles, all enthusiasm, leaped to his feet, ran to the garden’s edge. . .and raising his arms began shouting: ‘Poor, little old woman! Plain and ignorant as you are, love the Lord God and you can become greater than Brother Bonaventure.’ ” 

To my surprise the Church saw fit to enroll me in the catalogue of the holy ones by canonizing me on 14 April 1482. With this recognition through canonization came the acceptance of all that I had written. By this the Church said “yes” to a Franciscan Theology and confirmed this “yes” on 14 March 1588, by proclaiming me the Seraphic Doctor.

_{(This text originally was composed for an audiovisual presentation on Bonaventure’s life. In order to give a closer impression of his person we chose the form I instead of he. While imaginatively written, the text is based on historical data. See also Bonaventure: Mystical Writings, Zachary Hayes OFM (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co., 1999), pp. 16-18; Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey Into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of Saint Francis, introduction and translation by Ewert Cousins (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), pp. 2-8; Bonaventure. Mystic of God’s Word, introduced and edited by Timothy Johnson (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), pp. 10-26.)}

Last year, in 1265, I had just turned 48, the Pope nominated me to become Archbishop of York. I refused on the grounds that I must work for the friars. I gathered with the friars in general chapters at Pisa in 1263, at Paris in 1266, Assisi in 1269, Lyon in 1272. These chapters alone were enough to keep me busy and consume all my energy. I remember the chapter of Pisa in 1263. Francis always desired that the friars provide and care for the Poor Ladies. Clare respected this desire of Francis and wrote it into her Rule of 1253. Now the friars were “asking to be released from all responsibility towards the Poor Clares.” Pope Urban IV opposed this separation. I “wrote to Brother Lothario at the end of September pointing out how suitable it was that the friars should look after the [sisters].” But the new Rule of Urban IV issued the very next month, 18 October 1263, and imposed on the Poor Ladies, accepted the fact that the friars were unwilling to care for them. I regretted the separation which finally emerged.