Saint Bonaventure Part 4

Hitherto we have considered princ.i.p.ally the outward life of Bonaventure; we now turn to those interior virtues which made him a saint. Notwithstanding his manifold labours and the eminently strenuous life he led he was a perfect master of the interior life. A glance at his writings will show how thoroughly he understood the secrets of Mystic Theology, and how intimately acquainted he was with every aspect of the spiritual life. There is no phase of divine contemplation that he does not seem to have learnt by personal experience. It was this very striking characteristic which gained for him the t.i.tle of Seraphic Doctor.

He possessed the rare faculty of keeping his mind habitually fixed upon G.o.d in the midst of external occupations. To this may be traced the very remarkable attribute of his writings whereby {65} every subject he treats of is made ultimately to converge G.o.dwards. In his treatises "The Journey of the Mind to G.o.d," and "The Reduction of the Arts to Theology," the workings of his soul in this respect are systematized and reduced to scientific order. St. Antoninus notes this feature of Bonaventure's works when he says: "According as Bonaventure made progress in science and the knowledge of the Scriptures, so, too, he grew in the grace of devotion. For whatever he perceived with the intellect he reduced to the form of prayer and wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d and kept meditating on it continually in his heart."

Besides maintaining at all times this habitual spirit of recollection, our Saint sometimes withdrew entirely from the cares of his office and gave himself exclusively to prayer and recollection. It was on one such occasion, in the seclusion of Mount Alverna, that he conceived the idea of, and actually composed, his "Journey of the Mind to G.o.d".

He tells us this himself. "On an occasion," he says, [Footnote 30]

"when, after the example of the most Blessed Francis, I, a sinner, sighed for spiritual peace--I who, though unworthy in every respect, am yet his seventh successor in the general ministry of the Brethren--it happened that about the thirty-third year after his death I had withdrawn to Mount Alverna as to a quiet place where I might find {66} the peace I sought. Whilst there, as I reflected on certain elevations of the soul to G.o.d, amongst other thoughts there occurred to me the miracle which happened to Blessed Francis in this place, viz. the apparition of the Crucified Seraph. On reflection it instantly seemed to me that the vision signified the lifting up of St.

Francis by contemplation and the manner in which it was accomplished."

[Footnote 30: "Opera Omnia," Tom. V, Prologus, p. 295.]

Unfortunately the biographers of Bonaventure give us no definite insight into his interior spirit. There is no attempt at depicting that inner life which by words and actions, by trains of thought, lines of policy and personal habits, is always revealed to observant contemporaries. We have innumerable vague, though glowing, appreciations of his virtues and character in general. We are told most emphatically that he was a saint, but what kind of a saint we are not informed. In this dearth of particulars we must fall back upon the Saint's writings. We can justly hope to find in them some revelation of his spirit--of those particular ideas that guided and animated him.

We can take it for granted that what he taught he practised. The fact that he is a canonized Saint forbids us to think otherwise. Hence, in his numerous descriptions of those interior virtues that should adorn the spiritual life in general, we may see a reflection of those virtues which flourished in his own soul.

There is a small work on the spiritual life written by our Saint in which he depicts the virtues that {67} make for religious perfection.

The book is ent.i.tled "The Perfection of Life," and it reveals the spirit of Bonaventure more simply and, for our present purpose, more suitably than his greater works. It was written at the request of the Mother Abbess of some Community of Poor Clares. He refers to this fact in his introduction, and his words breathe such a deep spirit of humility that I cannot refrain from quoting them.

"Wherefore, Reverend Mother, devoted to G.o.d and dear to me, you have asked me out of the poverty of my heart to write something whereby, for the time being, you may instruct your soul in the way of devotion.

I sincerely confess that rather do I stand in need of such instruction myself, seeing that my life is not adorned with virtue outwardly, nor is it inflamed with devotion inwardly, nor is it enhanced by learning.

Nevertheless, moved by your pious wish, even as you have requested I have obeyed. But I ask your blessedness, most holy mother, to regard rather my good will than the result of my efforts; rather the truth of my words than the elegance of my language; and, that, where I fail to give satisfaction, you will excuse and forgive me on account of the lack of time and the pressure of business."

We must remember that these words were uttered by the successor of St.

Francis--a man whose reputation for learning and sanct.i.ty was world-wide--a man who was consulted by Popes and Princes, {68} whose merits were soon to raise him to the dignity of the Cardinalate, and upon whose words a few years later the entire Christian Church in General Council a.s.sembled would hang with profound admiration. Such an utterance gives us a better insight into Bonaventure's mind and character than pages of indefinite eulogy.

His deep sense of humility sprang from his perfect knowledge of himself. He considered self-knowledge an essential condition to the acquisition of true knowledge of any kind. "He knows nothing aright who knows not himself--who understands not the conditions of his own being. How dangerous it is for a religious soul to be eager to know indifferent things and yet neglect to learn its own deficiencies. That soul is near to ruin which is curious to know extraneous things and p.r.o.ne to judge others yet cares not to know itself." Apart from the sentiment of humility prompting this utterance, what profound wisdom does it not reveal! It establishes a truly golden rule for the guidance of the soul in its search after knowledge, secular or spiritual. It must begin by discovering its own limitations and defects. If it ignores these it cannot form a true estimate of anything. This truth was uttered by our Saint six hundred years ago and it is strange to hear it re-echoed in our own day under totally different circ.u.mstances. Men of science, on purely rational grounds, are reverting to the advice given by Bonaventure and are {69} deprecating the consequences of having hitherto more or less ignored it. Our knowledge of things distinct from ourselves must be modified and verified by our knowledge of the means by which it is acquired.

The intensity of Bonaventure's humility is evidenced by the fact that whereas his biographers seem to have overlooked his other virtues, they have left on record several instances of his humility. The following incident related [Footnote 31] by Wadding is touching in its simplicity:--

[Footnote 31: "Annals," Tom. IV, Anno 1269. NO.5.]

"As Bonaventure was on his way to the General Chapter of a.s.sisi, it happened that a poor spiritually afflicted Brother, named Fulginas, was very desirous of speaking to him but could not do so because of the numbers that surrounded him and engaged his attention. The poor Brother went along in advance of the Saint until he came almost to the walls of a.s.sisi and there awaited him. On his approach he cried out: 'Reverend Father, I should like very much to speak with you for my consolation, and I humbly beseech you not to despise your poor subject though he is beneath notice'. Bonaventure immediately left the company that surrounded him and seating himself on the ground beside the poor Brother, listened with great patience and kindness to his long and tedious recital, and consoled him with much compa.s.sion and sympathy.

His {70} companions, impatient at his long absence, expressed their disapproval of his action. But he said: 'I could not do otherwise. I am the minister and servant--the poor Brother my lord and master. I often recall those words of the Rule: 'Let the Ministers receive the Brothers charitably and kindly, and show themselves so familiar towards them that they (_the Brothers_) may speak and act with them like masters with their servants.' I, being the servant, should obey the will of my master and solace the misery of that poor sufferer."

This other anecdote ill.u.s.trates this virtue of humility quite as forcibly, and has the advantage of being more authentic. Salimbene, [Footnote 32] a contemporary chronicler, is our authority. "Brother Mark," he wrote, "was my special friend, and to such a degree did he love Brother Bonaventure, that he would frequently burst into tears on recalling (after his father's death) the learning and heavenly graces that had crowned his life. When Brother Bonaventure, the Minister-General, was about to preach to the clergy, this same brother Mark would say to him: 'You are indeed a hireling,' or, 'On former occasions you have preached without knowing precisely what you were talking about. I sincerely hope you are not going to do that now.'

Brother Mark acted thus to incite the General to more painstaking efforts. His depreciation was merely {71} affected and in no way genuine, for Mark reported all the sermons of his master and treasured them greatly. Brother Bonaventure _rejoiced_ at his friend's reproaches, and that for five reasons. First, because his was a kindly-hearted and long-suffering character; secondly, because thus he could imitate his blessed Father Francis; thirdly, because it showed how loyally Mark was devoted to him; fourthly, because it afforded him the means of avoiding vainglory; lastly, because it incited him to more careful preparation."

[Footnote 32: "Chronica," p. 138.]

For a mind so powerful, so enlightened, of such perfect equilibrium and sound judgment, humility was the only possible att.i.tude. Pride is the accompaniment of a weak mind or an unsound judgment. It is based upon a notion so palpably false and unworthy as to be inadmissible to a powerful mind. The proud man attributes to himself what he does not possess, or he fails to see that what he does possess is limited and imperfect, and that it is attributable rather to the Author of his being than to himself. Consequently, he does not perceive how senseless it is to glory in it or to despise his neighbour because he lacks it. The more a man knows, however, the humbler he is; because the very greatness of his knowledge only widens the extent of his outlook into the boundless sphere of truth that surrounds him, and which he feels he cannot explore.

In keeping with his spirit of humility our Saint {72} shunned honours of every kind. He steadfastly refused the Archbishopric of York to which he was appointed by Clement IV., and when that Pope, to secure more effectively his invaluable services for the Church, insisted on making him Cardinal, the envoys who brought him the Cardinal's hat found him was.h.i.+ng the dishes of the monastery--nor would he receive it before he had finished his menial task.

CHAPTER X.

LOVE OF G.o.d.

The Love of G.o.d is the perfection of the interior life. It is this which unites the soul with G.o.d, and the more intense it is, the closer is the union and the greater the consequent perfection. It is the crown and, consummation of all the virtues. Where it exists we shall, as a matter of consequence, find all the other virtues; and to describe it is implicitly to portray them all. Hence, when we shall have treated of St. Bonaventure's love for G.o.d, we shall consider ourselves absolved from the necessity of discussing his other virtues, especially as there is such a scarcity of data to lay under contribution. And even concerning the virtue under consideration, we must be content with reviewing the Saint's teaching upon it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Papal Envoy presenting St. Bonaventure with the Cardinal's hat.]

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None realized better than Bonaventure the supremacy of charity.

"Charity alone," he writes, [Footnote 33] "renders us pleasing to G.o.d.

Of all the virtues charity alone makes its possessor wealthy and blessed. If it is absent, in vain are all the other virtues present; if only it be present, all is present--for whoso possesses it possesses the Holy Ghost. If virtue const.i.tute the blessed life--virtue, I should add, is nothing else but the highest love of G.o.d." Since charity is so excellent it must be insisted upon beyond all the other virtues. Nor ought any kind of charity to be considered sufficient but that alone by which we love G.o.d above all things and our neighbour as ourselves for G.o.d's sake. The Saint insists, particularly, on the exclusive nature of the love of G.o.d. No interest in creatures and no affection for them should be allowed to interfere with it. "We should love G.o.d," he says, "with the whole heart, the whole mind and the whole soul. To love anything not in G.o.d and for G.o.d is to be wanting in His love." He quotes with approval the remarkable utterance of St. Augustine: "He loveth Thee less, O Lord! who loveth anything along with Thee which he does not love because of Thee". He a.s.signs as the proof of perfect love willingness to lay down one's life for G.o.d: "We love G.o.d with our whole soul when for the love of Jesus Christ we freely expose ourselves to death {76} when circ.u.mstances demand it. To love G.o.d with our whole mind is to be ever mindful of Him, to love Him unceasingly and without forgetfulness or neglect." Such is the substance of Bonaventure's general teachings on charity.

[Footnote 33: "Opera Omnia," Tom. VIII, "De Perfectione Vitae," Cap.

VII, p. 124.]

Elsewhere in his treatise, "The Triple Way, or the Fire of Love," he treats of the subject more in detail. He writes, no doubt, from the fulness of his heart and describes, the love which dominated his own soul. He distinguishes [Footnote 34] six stages or degrees of perfect charity.

[Footnote 34: "Opera Omnia," Tom. VIII, "De Triplici Via," Cap. II, --4, p. 10.]

The first stage is that of _sweetness_ when the soul learns to "taste and see how sweet the Lord is".

The second consists in the _yearning_ of the soul for G.o.d. Having become accustomed to spiritual sweetness, it is filled with a longing which nothing save the perfect possession of that which it loves can satisfy. And as this cannot be attained to here below the soul is continually transported out of itself by ecstatic love, and exclaims in the words of the Psalmist: "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O G.o.d!" (Ps. XLI. 2).

The third degree is _satiety_ which succeeds to the yearning just described. As the soul most vehemently desires G.o.d and is lifted up towards Him, everything that tends to hold it down becomes distasteful to it. It can find no pleasure in {77} anything save its beloved. It is like one whose appet.i.te has been fully appeased: if he attempt to take more food it produces disgust rather than pleasure. Such is the att.i.tude of the soul at this stage towards all earthly things.

The fourth degree is that of spiritual _inebriation_ which follows upon the aforesaid satiety. Inebriation consists in this: The soul's love for G.o.d is so great that not only does it reject all comfort and pleasure but it delights in suffering. For its consolation it embraces pain, and, as the Apostle did of old, it rejoices in reproaches and scourgings and torments for the love of its beloved.

The fifth degree of perfect charity is _security_. When the soul realizes that it loves G.o.d so greatly that it would willingly bear every pain and opprobrium for Him, it conceives such confidence in the divine a.s.sistance that it casts out all fear and a.s.sures itself that it can never by any means be separated from G.o.d. The Apostle had reached this stage when he exclaimed: "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? I am certain that neither life nor death can separate us from the love of G.o.d which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The sixth and last degree is found in true and perfect _tranquillity_, wherein such peace and quiet reign that the soul appears to lie in peaceful slumber from which there is nothing to disturb it. For what can disturb the soul which no movement of pa.s.sion a.s.sails and no pang of fear disquiets? {78} In such a soul peace and quiet reign. It has reached the final stage--"His place is in peace". It is impossible to reach such perfect tranquillity save by perfect charity. When this is attained it is very easy for a man to fulfil all that appertains to perfection--whether it be to do or to suffer, to live or to die.

Here indeed we have disclosed to us the dizziest heights of spiritual perfection. No more intimate union with G.o.d can we conceive, and yet may we not justly conjecture that it is a faithful portrayal of the personal experience of the Saint himself. The t.i.tle of _Seraphic_ Doctor bestowed upon Bonaventure is an undeniable tribute to his all-absorbing love for G.o.d. To the minds of his contemporaries, impregnated with the mysticism and supernatural atmosphere of the Middle Ages, the spirit that breathed in his writings seemed to find its parallel only in the lives of those heavenly beings--the Seraphim--whose existence is depicted as like to a glowing flame of divine love.

Furthermore, in his utterances concerning the workings of the soul in prayer, there is what I consider a very striking revelation of the intensity of Bonaventure's love for G.o.d. It is the love of G.o.d that vivifies prayer. Prayer is more or less perfect according to the charity that reigns in the soul--it reaches its highest perfection where love is all-pervading. Then we look for raptures and ecstasies such as marked the lives of the greatest saints. {79} Bonaventure's reflections on prayer imply this most burning love. The following utterances, [Footnote 35] of which I give the substance, are clearly indicative of this.

[Footnote 35: "Opera Omnia," Tom. VIII, "De Perfectione Vitae," Cap.

V, _pa.s.sim_.]

"In prayer we must enter with the Beloved into the chamber of the heart and there remain alone with Him. We must forget all external things, and with our whole heart and all our mind and all our affections and desires endeavour to lift our souls up to G.o.d. We should endeavour by the ardour of our devotion to mount higher and higher until we enter even into the heavenly court, and there with the eyes of the soul having caught sight of our Beloved, and having tasted how sweet the Lord is, we should rush into His embrace, kissing Him with the lips of tenderest devotion. Thus are we carried out of ourselves, rapt up to Heaven, and as it were, transformed into Christ." The Saint proceeds to explain how the ecstatic state is reached. "It sometimes happens," he says, "that the mind is rapt out of itself when we are so inflamed with heavenly desires that everything earthly becomes distasteful, and the fire of divine love burns beyond measure, so that the soul melts like wax, and is dissolved--ascending up before the throne of G.o.d like the fumes of fragrant incense. Again, it sometimes arrives that the soul is so flooded with divine light and overwhelmed by the vision of G.o.d's beauty that it is stricken with {80} bewilderment and dislodged from its bearings. And the deeper it sinks down by self-abas.e.m.e.nt in the presence of G.o.d's beauty, like a streak of lightning, the quicker it is caught up and rapt out of itself. Finally, it occurs that the soul inebriated by the fulness of interior sweetness utterly forgets what it is and what it has been, and is transported into a state of ineffable beat.i.tude and entirely permeated with uncreated love. It is forced to cry out with the Prophet: 'How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts. My soul longeth and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living G.o.d'" (Ps.

Lx.x.xIII.).

Effusions such as these a.s.suredly give us an insight into the extraordinary love that burned in the soul of Bonaventure. From the spiritual tepidity that oppresses us we can only contemplate it with wistful admiration. It proves to us indeed "how wonderful is G.o.d in His Saints," and how profoundly and intimately He influences the hearts of His chosen ones and attaches them inseparably to Himself.

It will be fitting to bring this chapter to a close by quoting, as outside testimony, the tribute which Cardinal Wiseman paid [Footnote 36] to this feature of our Saint's life. "There is another writer upon this inexhaustible subject," said His Eminence, "who more than any other will justify all that I have {81} said; and, moreover, prove the influence which these festivals of the Pa.s.sion may exercise upon the habitual feelings of a Christian. I speak of the exquisite meditations of St. Bonaventure upon the life of Christ, a work in which it is difficult what most to admire, the riches of imagination surpa.s.sed by no poet, or the tenderness of sentiment, or the variety of adaptation.

After having led us through the affecting incidents of Our Saviour's infancy and life, and brought us to the last moving scenes, his steps become slower from the variety of his beautiful but melancholy fancies; he now proceeds, not from year to year, or from month to month, or from day to day, but each hour has its meditations, and every act of the last tragedy affords him matter for pathetic imagination. But when at the conclusion, he comes to propose to us the method of practising his holy contemplations, he so distributes them, that from Monday to Wednesday shall embrace the whole, of Our Saviour's life; but from Thursday to Sunday inclusive each day shall be entirely taken up with the mystery which the Church in Holy Week has allotted to it. In this manner did he, with many others, extend throughout the whole year the solemn commemorations of Holy Week, for the promotion of individual devotion and sanctification, even as the Church had done for the public welfare."

[Footnote 36: Four Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy Week. Lecture the Fourth.]

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CHAPTER XI.