St. Bonaventure, 1217-1274. Seraphic Doctor, Feast July 15th.

For some, it is not easy to be oneself. We would like to be our true self. However, many of us, and we won't admit it, wear a mask and act contrary to the way God would have us act due to weakness and sin. Acting sincerely requires moral strength. We do not act sincerely when we are impatient. To act patiently, one must suffer lovingly.

We have such "short fuses". We blow up easily. We lose our tempers. "We fly off the handle" when rubbed the wrong way. We sincerely think it is right to get angry. We say Jesus got angry and therefore we justify it. Jesus' anger was the justice of God at work. Our anger is often our human nature without the justice of God involved. Oh, yes, we are nice and cordial to our love ones but when a hostile person irritates us we can get cross, mean and vindictive. We treat others the way we are treated. That is natural-not supernatural.

To act warm, compassionate and kind continually to hostile people makes no sense and we do not want to act foolish. However, at times, Christ became a fool for us to teach us wisdom. If we are to gain wisdom through the example of Christ, we must at times, allow ourselves to be treated like Jesus-a fool. This requires heroic virtue and strength. It also requires struggle and practice. We are encumbered with much "baggage". Our human nature is at times a contradiction and we are riddled with misleading or puzzling situations and ideas. We are short on wisdom. We lack the gifts and fruits of the Spirit that teaches us the wisdom of God. We do not mean to show off, but we are prone to our natural way of thinking or addicted to our hidden, tiny vices. We are arbitrary and we think we have to be at times.

Each of us has to be what we are. Isn't that life? We don't enjoy being a phony or a fake. However, who we are and what we are requires growth and development. No matter how old or young we are, we are often lacking in maturity or perfection. Only the fruits and gifts of God can empower us to reach completeness. Being warm with others, acting cordial, showing genuine sympathy at times and trying to act with more empathy requires virtue and grace from God. Many of us have had horrible experiences and it isn't easy to respect, let alone be kind to people who have inflicted hurt or harm toward us.

Bonaventure is the seraphic doctor who has the prescription to help us if we ask him and implore his warmth and tender charm. Our personalities, dispositions and attitudes can be transformed with his intercession. Everyone loves a cheerful giver and Bonaventure is irresistible. One does not become kind, compassionate and sensitive unless one is totally unselfish, pure and docile to the Holy Spirit and divine operations.

The illustrious founder of the Franciscan Friars, St Francis, cured Bonaventure of a serious illness as a boy in central Italy through his prayers, faith and God's favor. Later, he felt called by God to join the same religious order that he obviously knew. He devoted himself, as all can, according to God's will, to earnest study and prayer. God filled others with the fruits of his learning through his example, teaching and writing. The Order of Friar Minor (OFM), and the world, through Bonaventure, was renewed through his leadership and God's graces.

Our Italian Franciscan was a close friend of St Thomas Aquinas and received his doctorate with him as a Doctor of Theology in Paris. Thomas once asked him where he acquired his learning and Bonaventure pointed to his crucifix. Reflect and dwell on these spirited filled words of his: "whoever gazes upon Christ crucified with faith, hope and love will celebrate the Passover with Him". This master of theology and philosophy illuminates us, in this one sentence, with the secret and fulfillment of life, love and infinite happiness.

He held the leading role of his religious order and later was appointed a cardinal-bishop of Albano. He actually had declined an archbishopric position at Lyons. When the Pope offered Bonaventure one position, he humbly declined. Then the pope would offer him another. He got the message and Bonaventure humbly accepted.

The reason he is referred to as the seraphic doctor is because of the warmth found in his writings and teaching. Both were always filled and inspired with God's burning charity. In biblical literature, a seraph is one of the six-winged angels of the highest rank believed in ancient Judaism to guard God's throne with sacred ardor. We can say that every creature of God, and not only the angels, who guard themselves from evil thoughts or actions, acts in a seraphic manner. We are temples of the Most High. We contain the throne of God within us. God has given us a guardian angel to protect, rule, guide and grace us. However, we have to be on our guard to acknowledge God's love responsibly. We need to show and demonstrate acts of kindness and goodness as Bonaventure even to unkind or mean people. This requires strength and virtue. When we do this, and we can only do it with God's grace, we, too, will reveal the fervor of God's fire as blessed Bonaventure.

What are these God-given gifts and grace that the Almighty bestows? We can only conjecture but they would include the spirit of kindness, passion, peace, enthusiasm, zeal and gentleness toward others as our Franciscan friend displayed. Whether they are only the six mentioned or six thousand we can be sure that the infinite One possesses attributes that are endless for us to receive if we supplicate the generous One. Giving is God's exclusive style and mark and the Gift and the Giver are indistinguishable One and pefectly Union. God has nothing else to do but bestow blessings. Scripture shouts that the favors of God are not exhausted and that his mercies are not spent. They are renewed each morning. So great is God's faithfulness.

Each day, crazy as it may sound, God is preparing and panting for the union of our soul with its Author, Creator and Lover. God doesn't need time to bring us to maturity and perfection. The timeless fruits and gifts of God's graces enable us to share and experience eternal life now in a marvelous and breathtaking manner.

Perhaps the best way to compare and savor God's abundant favor and mercies is to imagine that tomorrow you are going to fall in love all over again, get married and go on a honeymoon with a person that you are absolutely "mad" over. This can be called or equivalent to, the spiritual marriage and life of union with God. It is impossible to describe because it is so personal, secret, subtle, silent and sonorous to express. However, it is real, beween two lovers. You and God. God eagerly, yet orderly, wants us to taste and see the sweetness of the Lord. We need this sweetness because we know that honeymoons do not last. However, the strength that we gain from genuine love hopefully empowers us to be fortified for the many difficulties and hardships on life's journey. Incidentally, the name Bonaventure means "good journey".

Our journey to God is brief, often unknown and full of surprises. It can be compared with a roller coaster ride with its ups and downs, its thrills and scary moments, its slowness and fastness at times, its twisting curves, bumps, and sudden jerks. At times, during this journey, we want to cry, laugh, shout and scream. The best preparation for life is to know that we have a wonderful traveling companion. We have Someone who has showed us the way and claimed he is the Way. He said that he is the Truth too. We know that Pilate, like many of us, have asked the rhetorical question: what is truth? Our life can only be found enjoyable and understood if we follow that Person who also claimed that he is the Life. The way, truth and life are three large categories. It seems that Jesus has surrounded us with every possible means to find him daily. The saints are models and teach us Jesus. The doctors are a unique set of saints that the church proclaims rarely but boldly.

Our doctor first taught at the University of Paris for about ten years. His teaching enkindled God's love in his subjects. His types of questions, his explanations, his answers - all, had divine warmth to them. He was a catalyst to anyone seeking the love and knowledge of God. Both in his Scripture and Theology courses, he made known to all that God was an exuberant Lover who cared and was solicitous for all creatures.

Many attacks were lodged against the Franciscan mendicants at this time largely because of jealousy and the success of their pastoral and academic endeavors. Bonaventure attempted to defend the friars by his good example and writings, some of which included: Concerning Perfection of Life, Soliloquy and Concerning the Threefold Way.

St Bonaventure's bent was to the ascetical rather than the philosophical approach. Ten thick volumes of writings testify to his inspired zeal. He is described as a "spiritual writer of great power and authority."

Our Franciscan doctor encouraged others in his lifetime and encourages us today to have a sincere spirit of humility, devotion and repentance. We need to practice these God-given qualities. Humility is a part of truth. Sound devotion is the earnest searching after God. Contrition, conversion and repentance means sorrow for past sins. We have committed egregious wrongs and have need of God's mercy. We are incapable and inadequate to have friendship with God without God's help and compassion. Our inadequacies are apparent in nearly all that we do despite our best intentions.

Read and listen to the following quote of St Bonaventure highlighting the futile effort of only human effort and not God's graces and support. Nothing can be gained supernaturally unless humility, devotion and repentance are practiced. Pray attentively as you think about Bonaventure's quote about our inadequacies:

"reading without repentance,
knowledge without devotion,
research without the impulse of wonder,
prudence without the ability to surrender to joy,
action divorced from religion,
learning sundered from love,
intelligence without humility,
study unsustained by divine grace,
thought without the wisdom inspired of God."

We often do all of the above in a natural manner when we could sanctify them with God's help and grace. We need grace! We can not follow our natural bent and inclination. That will not do it. Even if we achieved phenomenal results, is it pleasing to God? God does not measure the amount that we do but the quality of our love that we give. Bonaventure gave until it hurt and without complaining. He probably sensed that he was very ill and questioned to himself if he should have gone to the council at Rome. However, he was not thinking about himself but the church and her needs. Obedience and goodwill urged him onward.

During this period there were many reforms and renewals being encouraged by the church and Bonaventure attempted to pacify both the right and the left. He governed his Order for seventeen years and has been justly called its second founder. He also wrote about his Seraphic Founder's life, St Francis of Assisi.

This cordial and warm gentleman attended significant church councils, preached at sessions and gave his all to the church whenever the Holy Father requested his assistance. In fact, he died attending one of these sessions.

He attempted to unite holiness and theological knowledge. And he did just that! He was a very active preacher, writer and loved by all. It has been said that to know him was to love him. To read him is still for all, especially Franciscans today, to meet a true peacemaker and a gentleman. Many tears where shed by his sudden death just as he must have caused tears of conversion when he spoke about the joy of his life: Jesus Christ, the crucified Master. He was a person of eminent learning and eloquence and of outstanding holiness known for his kindness, approachableness, gentleness, compassion and virtue. What greater tribute could one possibly say than to be described as a very warm and charming saint, doctor, teacher, reformer and founder?

From one of his discourses: "The outcome or the fruit of reading Holy Scripture is by no means negligible: it is the fullness of eternal happiness. For these are the books which tell us of eternal life, which were written not only that we might believe but also that we might have everlasting life. When we do live that life we shall understand fully, we shall love completely, and our desires will be totally satisfied. Then, with all our needs fulfilled we shall truly know the love that surpasses all understanding and so be filled with the fullness of God. The purpose of scriptures, which comes to us from God, is to lead us to this fullness according to the truths contained in those sayings of the apostles to which I have referred. In order to achieve this, we must study Holy Scripture carefully, teach it and listen to it in the same way."

He explained Mary along a Franciscan theme of poverty and giving to the poor. He cited an unknown Franciscan who claims that Mary refused to accept the gifts given to Jesus by the Magi. She distributed them to the poor.

Bonaventure writes that Mary is fittingly compared to the Aurora. All astronomers, or those who views the stars at night, know that these are the most luminous arches of lights in the highest sky (Arctic regions). It is a phenomenon like no others. Mary is that incomparable light that God has created for Himself and us to guide and enlighten. He describes Mary as the Mirror of God through which we see Jesus. He wrote a magnificent 69 pages treatise on Mary. In one chapter, he writes about this "lovely light" of God is compared with the Aurora. One shines in the highest heavens and the other Aurora, shines in the earthly heavens. There are other chapters listed about Mary by Bonaventure who quotes from many other doctors:

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?action=openPageViewer&docId=20971270

His writings about Mary, theology and philosophy did much to illuminate our minds and set our hearts aglow with God's splendid charity and beauty. His "seraphic", keen insight, allows us to see God as much as it is humanly possible according to the degree that we are capable. We know from Sacred Scripture that God is a devouring Fire. The Deity allows sparks of that Furnace to inflame us as the highest ranks of Angels, Seraphim and Cherubim, are consumed with the divine Flame.

Praying with the Franciscan's spirit and practicing the art of detachment, one will become filled with the warmth of God. Then, the consolation of sharing one's goods and the fire of God will shine and motivate your life. In this manner, we have a resplendent model in Bonaventure, the seraphic doctor.

We only need to slow down, accept and surrender to God our life if we ever expect to find the best life that God intended for us. All of us with Bonaventure must travel this journey. It is true that we did not ask to be born. Thank God, the Creator didn't ask our permission. However, if it is true that we are born without choice, it is likewise true that we will not be reborn or saved except by choice. St Alphonsus said salvation is possible only by God's mercy and our turning to God in prayer. It is, indeed, exactly that-God's greatest gift for the asking and praying. The Son has come that we may have life and have it to the fullness. Oh, Bonaventure, help us in our journey home!

Many excellent books and programs are offered to Christians to reach our ultimate destiny. We need to invest our resources, time and energies to explore and discover how to travel lightly and enjoy the ride home. St Bonaventure is an excellent guide if we but petition him to assist us as we journey day by day.

Through his marvelous leadership he fed others through the example and fruits of his study, teaching and prayers. He will do the same for us when we earnestly implore his heavenly assistance and intercession. In conclusion, the words of St Bonaventure regarding the Mother of God taken from the July 15th, 2000 issue of the Magnificat reveal his ardent and seraphic charity and warmth.

"Oh, if you could feel in some way the quality and intensity of the fire sent from heaven, the refreshing coolness that accompanied it, the consolation it imparted; if you could realize the great exaltation of the Virgin Mother, the ennobling of the human race, the condescension of the divine majesty; if you could hear the Virgin singing with joy; if you could go with your Lady into the mountain region; if you could see the sweet embrace of the Virgin and the woman who had been sterile and hear the greeting in which the tiny servant recognized his Lord, the herald his Judge and the voice His Word, then I am sure you would sing in sweet tones with the Blessed Virgin that sacred hymn: My soul magnifies the Lord and with the tiny prophet you would exalt, rejoice and adore the marvelous virginal conception."

The Franciscans have an extensive website that is both scholarly and enjoyable on Bonaventure and others.

One prayer alone, that Bonaventure composed and recited after holy communion, will convince you why he is named the seraphic doctor. The reason that no other doctor surpassed being called the Seraphic Doctor as Bonaventure is because no other doctor spoke more effusively about divine love.

In his holy communion prayer, he pleads to be pierced profoundly and wounded infinitely in order to languish and melt with divine love in a longing manner. He ardently seeks a joyous and apostolic charity that is calm and healthful. He yearns for companionship and union with the celestial court and to be totally immersed with God's fire. His hunger and thirst for God are insatiable. His prayer reminds one that he is totally beside himself in expressing his complete yearning to love and share God with all humanity in heaven and earth. All his actions and good deeds noticed by others reflect this divine warmth and kindness.

Bonaventure completes this holy communion prayer by petitioning God to be plunged in divine awareness and fully possessed of God.

He called holy communion the supersubstantial bread because it is so sweet, savory and exceeds all possible pleasure and delight whether it be imagined or real.

For details on his unsurpassed, ardent praying:

http://www.franciscan-archive.org/bonaventura/index.html This prayer will be found near the end of this website.

Poor Clares are cloistered sisters living in community, striving to reflect to the world the love of God and the light of St Clare of Assisi while dedicating their lives to prayer, poverty and work for the needs of the world. Information (513) 825-7177 Monastery of St Clare 1505 Miles Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45231-2427. Email:dorisgerke@juno.com. Fax:(513)825-4071. Taken from Vision publication.

http://www.visionguide.org/

Franciscans are priests and brothers following the life and ideals of Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure, living the Gospels through a communal life of poverty, chasity and obedience, caring for those in need and dedicating their lives to diverse worldwide ministries. Info: 1-800-827-1082
Vocation office: 5000 Colerain Avenue Cincinnati. OH 45223. Email:

francis@eos.net.

Web:http://www.franciscan.org/

For other exciting Franciscan spirituality in the secular realm and a special prayer:


http://www.cin.org/ap/stbon.htm

Mary and Bonaventure:

http://www.catholic-pages.com/dir/link.asp?ref=13835

Franciscan Renewal:

http://www.francescoproductions.com/

The below link contains St Francis' life, many Franciscan links and resources, poetry, information on the blessing of the animals and much more-very exciting

http://www.franciscanfriarstor.com/

The Theory of Illumination in St. Bonaventure by Brother John Raymond: http://www.franciscan-sfo.org/bonavent.htm