Bonaventure Quotes

To know much and taste nothing-of what use is that?

Love transcended loss long enough for them to find that the depth of feeling is best known in silence, because in the presence of such love words are never quite enough.

In things of beauty, he contemplated the One who is supremely beautiful, and, led by the footprints he found in creatures, he followed the Beloved everywhere

The day was so wonderful that Bonaventure thought it would taste like cherry pie if he took a bite of it.

She opened her heart and her home to her Purpose, and waited for it to come in.

Their hands never touched, not even in an accidental brushing, and that was a good thing, for real intimacy has a dawn.

Since happiness is nothing else than the enjoyment of the Supreme Good, and the Supreme Good is above us, no one can enjoy happiness unless he rises above himself.

St. Bonaventure (1221–1274) taught that to work up to loving God, start by loving the very humblest and simplest things, and then move up from there.

I hear You saying to me: "I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude. I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand, because I want it to be the quickest way. "Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you, to deny you, to hurt you, to give you pain, and therefore to reduce you to solitude. "Because of their enmity, you will soon be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you and reject you and you will be alone. "Everything that touches you shall burn you, and you will draw your hand away in pain, until you have withdrawn yourself from all things. Then you will be all alone. "Everything that can be desired will sear you, and brand you with a cautery, and you will fly from it in pain, to be alone. Every created joy will only come to you as pain, and you will die to all joy and be left alone. All the good things that other people love and desire and seek will come to you, but only as murderers to cut you off from the world and its occupations. "You will be praised, and it will be like burning at the stake. You will be loved, and it will murder your heart and drive you into the desert. "You will have gifts, and they will break you with their burden. You will have pleasures of prayer, and they will sicken you and you will fly from them. "And when you have been praised a little and loved a little I will take away all your gifts and all your love and all your praise and you will be utterly forgotten and abandoned and you will be nothing, a dead thing, a rejection. And in that day you shall being to possess the solitude you have so long desired. And your solitude will bear immense fruit in the souls of men you will never see on earth. "Do not ask when it will be or where it will be or how it will be: On a mountain or in a prison, in a desert or in a concentration camp or in a hospital or at Gethsemani. It does not matter. So do not ask me, because I am not going to tell you. You will not know until you are in it. "But you shall taste the true solitude of my anguish and my poverty and I shall lead you into the high places of my joy and you shall die in Me and find all things in My mercy which has created you for this end and brought you from Prades to Bermuda to St. Antonin to Oakham to London to Cambridge to Rome to New York to Columbia to Corpus Christi to St. Bonaventure to the Cistercian Abbey of the poor men who labor in Gethsemani: "That you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ of the burnt men.

In all your deeds and words you should look upon this Jesus as your model. Do so whether you area walking or keeping silence, or speaking, whether you are alone or with others. He is perfect, and thus you will be not only irreprehensible, but praiseworthy.

The fire sings to the marshmallow, and the song turns the marshmallow brown because that's what marshmallows do when they're happy.

The mirror done broke and your life looking back at you from them sharp glass pieces.

She did not believe in random. God does not deal in random.

Describing Francis as the truly humble person, Bonaventure writes: “As Christ’s disciple he strove to regard himself as worthless in his own eyes and those of others. He used to make this statement frequently: ‘What a person is before God, that he is and no more.’”34

As “pride is the beginning of all sin,” (Eccl. x, 15) so humility is the foundation of all virtue. Learn to be really humble and not, as the hypocrite, humble merely in appearance.

Strange, then, is the blindness of the intellect, which does not consider that which it sees first and without which it can know nothing.

In Bonaventure’s view only one who is on a journey to God can really know God; faith seeks understanding through the path of love.

The mind unlearned in reverence, says Bonaventure (1221–1274), is in danger of becoming so captivated by the spectacle of beings as to be altogether forgetful of being in itself; and our mechanistic approach to the world is nothing but ontological obliviousness translated into a living tradition.

Before long the formed into a circle, and neither of them could imagine being a straight line again, caught in the loneliness of blunt severed ends.

The mind can take in many things, but it cannot take in God.

Remember, what to us seems like God's biggest errors, to Him they are His largest promises.

Both Saint Bernard and Saint Bonaventure say that the Queen of Heaven is certainly no less grateful and conscientious than gracious and well-mannered people of this world. Just as she excels in all other perfections, she surpasses us all in the virtue of gratitude; so she would never let us honor her with love and respect without repaying us one hundred fold. Saint Bonaventure says that Mary will greet us with grace if we greet her with the Hail Mary.

Bonaventure was the first Superior of the Franciscan Order after the death of its founder. Thomas Aquinas once asked him where he got his extensive knowledge. Bonaventure pointed to the crucifix on his desk. “That is the source of all my knowledge,” he said. “I study only Jesus Christ, and Him crucifi ed.” Bonaventure had received the holy kiss of the divine nature of Jesus. * * * Set aside a portion of time today to read Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2. As a follower of Christ, what are you “determined to know” or be or do (verse 2)? Is it what Christ wants for you? Then spend time thinking about the words, “We have the mind of Christ” (verse 16). How would your life change if you embraced this truth?

was whispered unto his spirit that spiritual merchandise hath its beginning in the contempt of the world, and that the warfare of Christ is to be begun by victory over self.

it was whispered unto his spirit that spiritual merchandise hath its beginning in the contempt of the world, and that the warfare of Christ is to be begun by victory over self.

Please God, please God, can you please tell me why? I ask this of you, yet in my heart, I know.

and, by the merits of the Mother of Mercy, he did himself conceive and give birth unto the spirit of Gospel truth.

The could never have explained Bonaventure anyway because there is no scientific word for miraculous.

Bonaventure Arrow could travel the world through the abundant good graces of his silence.

-I'm glad you're my dad. I love your sound. William took that to mean 'I love you' for sound was all he was to Bonaventure. 'I love you too,' he said.

Bonaventure always liked pictures because even though they had no mouths they managed to speak.

Bonaventure heard the determination behind the Wanderer's library deed. It sounded like a thousand marching boots.

Bonaventure could hear The Wanderer's regret. It made the sound of burned skin that cannot scab over because it is too far gone.

Bonaventure’s theology is never about trying to placate a distant or angry God, earn forgiveness, or find some abstract theory of justification. He is all cosmic optimism and hope! Once it lost this kind of mysticism, Christianity became preoccupied with fear, unworthiness, and guilt much more than being included in—and delighting in—an all-pervasive plan that is already in place.

But did it have to be that those who were most damaged by the genocide remained the most neglected in the aftermath? Bonaventure Nyibizi was especially worried about young survivors becoming extremists themselves. "Let's say we have a hundred thousand young people who lost their families and have no hope, no future. In a country like this if you tell them, 'Go and kill your neighbor because he killed your father and your seven brothers and sister,' they'll take the machete and do it. Why? Because they're not looking at the future with optimism. If you say the country must move toward reconciliation, but at the same time it forgets these people, what happens? When they are walking on the street we don't realize their problems, but perhaps they have seen their mothers being raped, or their sisters being raped. It will require a lot to make sure that these people can come back to society and look at the future and say, 'Yes, let us try.'" That effort wasn't being made. The government had no program for survivors.

There have been some saints, but they have been in small numbers, who have walked upon this sweet path to go to Jesus, because the Holy Ghost, faithful Spouse of Mary, by a singular grace disclosed it to them. Such were St. Ephrem, St. John Damascene, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Bonaventure, St. Francis de Sales, and others. But the rest of the saints, who are the greater number, although hall all had devotion to our Blessed Lady, nevertheless have either not at all, or at least very little, entered upon this way. That is why they have had to pass through ruder and more dangerous trials.

From inside Dancy's warm, safe womb Bonaventure heard two voices singing, and his little heart beat out a raining tattoo as if to keep in time with the song. He had no suspicion that anything had changed, because for him they had not; he'd always known these two voices, one soft, one deep and had always found them soothing.

One time Bonaventure heard the graphite of a pencil rasp across a piece of paper and leave a slight and quivered mark behind. He listened so hard he heard the graphite's history, when it was still a part of metamorphic rock that didn't know it would one day almost capture what was almost a thought from the mind of an insane man.

I know who I am. I am Clive. I am seen and loved by God. I was created for a purpose. I need no other truth.

We all need saving. " He smiled just a bit. Just enough to make the creases at his eyes deepen. "It's the idea that we don't that makes us fools."~Hank

And you gots a Purpose too. Your Purpose gonna show itself when the time be right.

Lord knows, nobody understand where love come from if not from inside a mystery.

His listening intensified day by day until he could hear the adagio movement of a nucleus inside an electron aria that floated through the operatic galaxy inside a single atom. And then he began to hear extra... In the case of the marmalade spoon, the whir of the bluebottle fly was more than a buzzing, it also spoke of the splendor of courage. That was the extra part.

It is perhaps permissible here to draw attention to a distinction made by Martin Heidegger, who speaks of the duality of calculating and reflective thought. Both modes of thought are legitimate and necessary, but for this very reason neither can be absorbed in the other. There must therefore be both: calculating thought, which is concerned with "makability," and reflective thought, which is concerned with meaning. And one cannot deny that the Freiburg philosopher has a good deal of justification for expressing the fear that in an age in which calculating thought is celebrating the most amazing triumphs man is nevertheless threatened, perhaps more than ever before by thoughtlessness, by the flight from thought. By thinking only of the practicable, of what can be made, he is in danger of forgetting to reflect on himself and on the meaning of his existence. Of course, this temptation is present in every age. Thus in the thirteenth century the great Franciscan theologian Bonaventure felt obliged to reproach his colleagues of the philosophical faculty at Paris with having learned how to measure the world but having forgotten how to measure themselves.

I had liefer that thou shouldst strip the altar of the glorious Virgin, when our need demandeth it, than that thou shouldst attempt aught, be it but a little thing, against our vow of poverty and the observance of the Gospel. For the Blessed Virgin would be better pleased that her altar should be despoiled, and the counsel of the Holy Gospel perfectly fulfilled, than that her altar should be adorned, and the counsel given by her Son set aside.

We must beg the Holy Spirit, with ardent longing, to give us these fruits. The Holy Ghost alone knows how to bring to light the sweetness hidden away under the rugged exterior of the words of the Law. We must go to the Holy Ghost for interior guidance.

When we read then in the writings of Sts. Bernard, Bernadine, Bonaventure and others that in Heaven and on earth everything, even God Himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin, they mean that the authority which God has been well pleased to give her is so great that it seems as if she had the same power as God; and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed to His will.

Life was far from perfect. The circus celebrated that. And while some believed that is only mocked it, Pippa knew better. She knew deeper. She knew, in her soul, that they found communion under the circus banner. And they would rescue each other, because that's what family did.

Once when the Brethren asked whether it were his will that the clerks that had been already received into the Order should devote themselves unto the study of Holy Scripture, he made answer: “It is indeed my will, yet for so long alone as they follow the example of Christ, Who, we read, prayed more than He read, and for so long as they do not lose their zeal for prayer, nor study only that they may know how they ought to speak; rather let them study that they may be doers of the word, and, when they have done it, may set forth unto others what they too should do.

He had figured out that thoughts exist in silence and have no colour or sound or shape until they are turned into words. Spoken words exist in the mind first and then go to the voice and sit temporarily inside ears, and if words are conveyed through sign language, they exist in the motion of hands.

The music interrupted mockingbirds and cardinals and half-hour church bells. It was at times orchestral and at times a cappella, a mighty love song made of lullaby, angel chant, opera, and hymn. There were the tap water and scissor sounds of wished-for beauty; the gumball rattle of giant kindness; the crinkly-page sounds meant for Creathie LaRue; the joyful, last-sip gurgle from Bixie’s Luncheonette; the moist-earth sounds of healing; the echo of wind in trees; the pinging of broken sunlight; and the courageous buzzing of a bluebottle fly all mixed together in a wonderful, powerful, magical gris-gris.

Deliver me, O Lady, from all evil: and from the infernal enemy defend me. Against me he hath drawn his bow: and in his craftiness he hath laid snares for me. Restrain his evil power: and powerfully crush his craft. Turn back his iniquity on his own head: and let him speedily fall into the pit which he hath made. But we will rejoice in thy service: and we will glory in thy praise.

Have mercy on me, O Lady: for thou art called the Mother of Mercy. And according to thy mercy: cleanse me from all my iniquities. Pour forth thy grace upon me: and withdraw not from me thine accustomed clemency. For I will confess my sins to thee: and I will accuse myself of all my crimes before thee. Reconcile me to the Fruit of thy womb: and make peace for me with Him who has created me.

The great self-limitation practiced by man for ten centuries yielded, between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, the whole flower of the so-called "Renaissance." The root, usually, does not resemble the fruit in appearance, but there is an undeniable connection between the root's strength and juiciness and the beauty and taste of the fruit. The Middle Ages, it seems, have nothing in common with the Renaissance and are opposite to it in every way; nonetheless, all the abundance and ebullience of human energies during the Renaissance were based not at all on the supposedly "renascent" classical world, nor on the imitated Plato and Virgil, nor on manuscripts torn from the basements of old monasteries, but precisely on those monasteries, on those stern Franciscians and cruel Dominicans, on Saints Bonaventure, Anselm of Canterbury, and Bernard of Clairvaux. The Middle Ages were a great repository of human energies: in the medieval man's asceticism, self-abnegation, and contempt for his own beauty, his own energies, and his own mind, these energies, this heart, and this mind were stored up until the right time. The Renaissance was the epoch of the discovery of this trove: the thin layer of soil covering it was suddenly thrown aside, and to the amazement of following centuries dazzling, incalculable treasures glittered there; yesterday's pauper and wretched beggar, who only knew how to stand on crossroads and bellow psalms in an inharmonious voice, suddenly started to bloom with poetry, strength, beauty, and intelligence. Whence came all this? From the ancient world, which had exhausted its vital powers? From moldy parchments? But did Plato really write his dialogues with the same keen enjoyment with which Marsilio Ficino annotated them? And did the Romans, when reading the Greeks, really experience the same emotions as Petrarch, when, for ignorance of Greek, he could only move his precious manuscripts from place to place, kiss them now and then, and gaze sadly at their incomprehensible text? All these manuscripts, in convenient and accurate editions, lie before us too: why don't they lead us to a "renascence" among us? Why didn't the Greeks bring about a "renascence" in Rome? And why didn't Greco-Roman literature produce anything similar to the Italian Renaissance in Gaul and Africa from the second to the fourth century? The secret of the Renaissance of the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries does not lie in ancient literature: this literature was only the spade that threw the soil off the treasures buried underneath; the secret lies in the treasures themselves; in the fact that between the fourth and fourteenth centuries, under the influence of the strict ascetic ideal of mortifying the flesh and restraining the impulses of his spirit, man only stored up his energies and expended nothing. During this great thousand-year silence his soul matured for The Divine Comedy; during this forced closing of eyes to the world - an interesting, albeit sinful world-Galileo was maturing, Copernicus, and the school of careful experimentation founded by Bacon; during the struggle with the Moors the talents of Velasquez and Murillo were forged; and in the prayers of the thousand years leading up to the sixteenth century the Madonna images of that century were drawn, images to which we are able to pray but which no one is able to imitate. ("On Symbolists And Decadents")

Hear my prayer, O Lady: upon a firm rock establish my mind. Be thou to me a tower of strength: protect me from the face of the cruel destroyer. Be thou to him terrible as an army in battle array: and may he fall living into the depths of hell. For thou art shining and terrible: a cloud full of dew, and the rising dawn. Thou art beautiful and bright as the full moon: thy sacred aspect is as when the sun shines in its strength.

All ye nations, clap your hands: sing in jubilee to the glorious Virgin. For she is the gate of life, the door of salvation, and the way of our reconciliation. The hope of the penitent: the comfort of those that weep: the blessed peace of hearts, and their salvation. Have mercy on me, O Lady, have mercy on me: for thou art the light and the hope of all who trust in thee. By thy salutary fecundity let it please thee: that pardon of my sins may be granted unto me.

We, therefore, pray to the most kind Father through you, his only-begotten Son, who for us became man, was crucified and glorified, that he send us out of his treasures the Spirit of sevenfold grace who rested upon you in all fullness: the Spirit, I say, of WISDOM, that we may taste the life-giving flavors of the fruit of the tree of life, which you truly are; the gift also of UNDERSTANDING, by which the intentions of our mind are illumined; the gift of COUNSEL, by which we may follow in your footsteps on the right paths; the gift of FORTITUDE, by which we may be able to weaken the violence of our enemies’ attacks; the gift of KNOWLEDGE, by which we may be filled with the brilliant light of your sacred teaching to distinguish good and evil; the gift of PIETY, by which we may acqire a merciful heart; the gift of FEAR, by which we may draw away from all evil and be set at peace by submitting in awe to your eternal majesty. for you have wished that we ask for these things in that sacred prayer which you have taught us; and now we ask to obtain them, through your cross, for the praise of your most holy name. to you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, thanksgiving, beauty and power, forever and ever. Amen. -From Prayer “To Obtain the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit” included at the closing The Tree of Life

Bonaventure says in his commentary on the Mystical Theology of Dionysius. “As this perception is of higher things and not of those of the earth, we are told to disregard not only the action of the exterior but of the interior senses as well. The experimental knowledge of this comes from God, who declares by Ezekiel that he has given the recollected soul rings in its ears that it may be deaf to learned reasonings and has stopped its lips that it may not speak of them. These three words, blind, deaf, and dumb, can also be referred to the three powers of the soul,[173] directing that the intelligence should be blind in the manner we have described and not make use of its knowledge, which might destroy this suspension, and that the will should be deaf to the love to which creatures invite it.

Concerning these two things Bonaventure says: “The soul should first forsake the consideration of and affection for visible things and the contemplation of what is perceived by the senses, and should let pure love take precedence. Let the memory keep silence, not recalling any matters on which it could be employed. Thus Jesus enters the soul, though not in a fleshly manner but according to the spirit, while the three doors are closed as, after the resurrection, he entered the supper room of which the doors were shut. This is a figure of the soul into which God comes to sup if only the door of consent is open to him.

The great Bonaventure said that the wise must enhance conceptual clarity with the truth implicit in the actions of the simple...." "Like the chapter of Perugia and the learned memories of Ubertino, which transform into theological decisions the summons of the simple to poverty." I said. "Yes, but as you have seen, this happens too late, and when it happens, the truth of the simple has already been transformed into the truth of the powerful, more useful for the Emperor Louis than for a Friar of the Poor Life.

For Scotus, as for Bonaventure, the Trinity is the absolute beginning point—and ending point too. Outpouring Love is the inherent shape of the universe, and when we love, only then do we fully exist in this universe. We do not need to “understand” what is happening, or who God is, before we can live in love. The will to love precedes any need to fully understand what we are doing, the Franciscan School would say.

Juana does not side exactly with either of the two medieval answers to the question of the purpose of the incarnation. She does not, with Anselm, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas, understand the incarnation as primarily remedial, chosen by God to undo the effects of sin by way of redemption. Juana comes closer to John Duns Scotus's idea: the purpose of the incarnation is that humankind should give God the highest possible glory. Yet her view cannot be identified simply with this. Rather, the purpose of the incarnation—identical to that of creation—is the ultimate union of two kinds of divine beauty: the beauty of the eternal Word and the beauty that has been given to creatures.

Prayer for All Things Necessary for Salvation O MY God! I believe in Thee; do Thou strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in Thee; do Thou secure them. I love Thee with my whole heart; teach me to love Thee more and more. I am sorry that I have offended Thee; do Thou increase my sorrow. I adore Thee as my first beginning; I aspire after Thee as my last end. I give Thee thanks as my constant benefactor; I call upon Thee as my sovereign protector. Vouchsafe, O my God, to conduct me by Thy wisdom, to restrain me by Thy justice, to comfort me by Thy mercy, to defend me by Thy power. To Thee I desire to consecrate all my thoughts, my actions, and my sufferings, that I henceforward may think only of Thee, speak only of Thee, and ever refer all my actions to Thy greater glory, and suffer willingly whatever Thou shalt appoint. O Lord, I desire that in all things Thy will be done, because it is Thy will, and in the manner that Thou willest. I beg of Thee to enlighten my understanding, to inflame my will, to purify my body, and to sanctify my soul. Give me strength, O my God, to expiate my offenses, to overcome my temptations, to subdue my passions, to acquire the virtues proper for my state. Fill my heart with tender affection for Thy goodness, a hatred of my faults, a love for my neighbor, and a contempt for the world. Let me always be submissive to my superiors, condescending to my inferiors, faithful to my friends, and charitable to my enemies. Assist me to overcome sensuality by mortification, avarice by almsdeeds, anger by meekness, and tepidity by zeal. O my God, make me prudent in my undertakings, courageous in dangers, patient in affliction, and humble in prosperity. Grant that I may be ever attentive at my prayers, temperate at my meals, diligent in my employments, and constant in my resolutions. Let my conscience be ever upright and pure, my exterior modest, my conversation edifying, my comportment regular. Assist me, that I may continually labor to overcome nature, correspond with Thy grace, keep Thy commandments, and work out my salvation. Discover to me, O my God, the nothingness of this world, the greatness of heaven, the shortness of time, the length of eternity. Grant that I may be prepared for death, fear Thy judgments, escape hell, and, in the end, obtain heaven. All that I have asked for myself I confidently ask for others; for my family, my relations, my benefactors, my friends, and also for my enemies. I ask it for the whole Church, for all the orders of which it is composed; more especially for our Holy Father, the Pope; for our bishop, for our pastors, and for all who are in authority; also for all those for whom Thou desirest that I should pray. Give them, O Lord, all that Thou knowest to be conducive to Thy glory and necessary for their salvation. Strengthen the just in virtue, convert sinners, enlighten infidels, heretics, and schismatics; console the afflicted, give to the faithful departed rest and eternal life; that together we may praise, love, and bless Thee for all eternity. Amen.

To the Blessed Virgin Mary REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, and sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother! To thee I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

helped Lewis along in the final stage of what the medieval writer Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1221–1274) describes as the “journey of the mind to God.

Incline thine ear, O Lady, to hear my prayers: and turn not away from me the beauty of thy face. Turn our mourning into rejoicing: and our tribulation into joy.

happiness is nothing other than the enjoyment of the highest good,

Only then can our intellect be said truly to grasp the intelligible content of propositions, when it knows with certitude that they are true; and such certitude implies awareness that our intellect is not deceived in such grasping. The intellect, indeed, knows that this truth cannot stand differently, that this truth is unchangeable. But since our mind itself is subject to change, it could not perceive this truth as shining unchangingly, except in the beam of a certain light which is absolutely changeless, and which therefore cannot possibly be created and so subject to change. Thus, our intellect understands in the true Light that enlightens every man who comes into the world, the true Light of the Word who was in the beginning with God.

The Franciscan intellectual tradition as it developed before Bonaventure, and above all, Duns Scotus, has so far garnered relatively little scholarly attention.1 By most accounts, Bonaventure’s forebears, and even Bonaventure himself, worked primarily to systematize the intellectual tradition of Augustine that had prevailed for most of the earlier Middle Ages.2 In contrast, Scotus is supposed to have broken with the precedent set by earlier Franciscans in order to develop innovative philosophical and theological positions that anticipated the rise of modern thought.

If justice were simple,” he added, “we wouldn’t struggle with closure.

Trusting that people—that God—didn’t expect nearly as much of her as she did of herself.

a similitude may be well proportioned in three respects. When it is seen as containing the species or form, the proportion will be called beauty, for “beauty is nothing else but harmonious proportion,” or a “certain arrangement of parts together with harmony in the colors.

When the similitude is seen as containing potency or power, the proportion is called pleasantness,

When the similitude is seen as active and impressive, the impression will be well proportioned if the impressing agent fills a need of the receiver, that is, sustains and nourishes him,

inquires into the very principle of the pleasure the sense derives from the object.

no one can attain beatitude unless he rises above himself, not in body but in heart. Yet we cannot rise above ourselves unless a superior power lifts us up. No matter how well we plan our spiritual progress, nothing comes of it unless divine assistance intervenes. And divine assistance is there for those who seek it humbly and devoutly, who sigh for it in this vale of tears by fervent prayer.

pleasure consists in the meeting of an object and subject which are mutually adequate; and since in the Similitude of God alone is the notion of the perfectly beautiful, joyful, and wholesome, fully verified; and since He is united with us in all reality and intimacy, and with a plenitude that completely fills all capacity: it is clearly evident that in God alone is true delight, delight as in its very Source. It

Words are powerful magic. With a well chosen phrase, you can put someone down, bring them to their knees, or drop them at Death's doorstep. Ultimately, you decide to create something good in the world or destroy someone forever." Madam Saboulia, Professor of Incantations Bonaventure's Academy of Magic

Saint Bonaventure speaks of growth in prayer and affirms, “Here is such quiet and peace that the soul is, in a way, established in silence and is asleep, as if in Noah’s Ark where tempests cannot reach.

In Bonaventure’s view, one’s relationship with God influences the destiny of creation and the consummation of history. Our lives not only make a difference but a cosmic difference.

Kolbe lived from and for Jesus. He could do this because he heard in Scripture the voice of a living Person. He heard Jesus as a living Person because he experienced him as a living Person; he could touch him in the Blessed Sacrament in which he forms a Church and is present for us. Sacrament and Scripture together made it possible for Kolbe to experience the one living Christ. Like Francis and Bonaventure, he was convinced that to look upon Christ is to look, not backward, but forward. We do not go forward when we heap up more and more possessions around us; we go forward when we become more ready for God, more ready for love.

St. Bonaventure’s principle, that the secret of a fruitful apostolate is to be found much more at the foot of the Cross than in the display of brilliance.

My name is Bonaventure Onedira Nangele Angila, and I am a thief, a liar, and a fraud.

Mary’s Fingerprints The most significant era where her fingerprints have been left is medieval Europe. The word medieval today has many negative connotations; if something is medieval, it’s backward, crude, superstitious, and/or illogical. Most of this stems from modern faith in science and technology, which have mistakenly become the signs of progress and human achievement. While certainly we have much to be grateful for in regards to science and technology, Christians know that true faith isn’t in laws of nature but in the Lawgiver; it isn’t in the created but in the Creator. And no matter how rustic and backward medieval culture might be to some, there is much to be said about it and learned from it. Philosophy Medieval culture has the most to offer modernity in the realm of philosophy. The rigor, the tight arguments, and the demanding intellectual climate—like flint sharpening flint—resulted in mental giants who are head and shoulders above the rest of Western civilization. During the scholastic era, under the guidance of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, Marian devotion flourished in the work of St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, and Blessed Duns Scotus. In addition to their erudite treatises—which have been influencing theology, philosophy, and law ever since—these scholars emphasized the importance of Mary.

The dualistic mind seemingly has a preference for knowing things by comparison. The price we pay for our dualistic mind is that one side of the comparison is always idealized and the other demonized, or at least minimized. There is little room for balance or honesty, much less love. Wisdom, however, is always holding the “rational” and the “romantic” together: Aristotle and Plato, Aquinas and Bonaventure, Freud and Jung, saint and sinner, Spirit and senses. In fact, you could say that the greater opposites you can hold together, the greater soul you usually have. By temperament, most of us prefer one side to the other. Holding to one side or another frees us from the tension and the anxiety. Only a few dare to hold the irresolvable tension in the middle. It is the “folly” of the cross, where you cannot “prove” you are right, but only “hang” between the good and the bad thieves of every issue, paying the price for their reconciliation (see Luke 23:39 ff.). The

It was a peaceful thing. The knowing. The knowing that she had never truly been unseen.~ Pippa

Maybe it was worth pursuing faith. For in the pursuing, one must come out of hiding and run towards grace. Because it was only grace that would ever truly save. ~Pippa

The dwarf insisted that life was meant to be lived in full vibrance of being recognized by the One who had created them.

Hank's muttered words were so endearing, so dismissive of her guilt that Chandler allowed her tears to come unfettered. Allowed herself to feel. Allowed herself to believe that sometimes God brought peace in the most unusual and outside-the-norm ways. ~Chandler

We were all meant to be....Providence places you there...who knew God had one of me up His sleeve?~Patty

Bonaventure recontextualizes poverty in the whole Christian life. Poverty is carefully presented, not as an end in itself, but as a particularly effective means to insuring two essential Christian virtues: (i) the fundamental humility that every Christian should have before God, and (2) the charity that is the Christian life. In other words, Bonaventure subordinates poverty to the absolutely foundational virtues of humility and charity.

The wise person is the one who knows all things in compliance with what is fitting.

He did much to keep different groups of Franciscans together, one of the many reasons that have led a majority of Franciscan historians to regard Bonaventure's generalate as a blessing in which his moderation saved the order from chaos.47 For those who are inclined to doubt this view, it is important to recall that shortly after his death, the order fell into nearly four decades of fractious dispute, which turned deadly in 1318, when four Spirituals were burned at the stake in Marseilles.48

St Bonaventure came closer to the core of its meaning when he wrote that “the Samaritan poured into the wounds of the half-dead wanderer the wine of fervent zeal and the oil of compassion.

when a pilgrim approaches the level of growth called the Unitive Way, he deals with metaphysics not as an abstract theory, but rather as an experienced reality. The ultimate being is God. A person in the Unitive Way knows this God, who in the Trinity we call “Father.” St. Bonaventure suggests our chief meditation in this phase is the supersensual realm—that is, higher realms of spirit and knowing. In our age, this may involve a growing appreciation of how the experiential core of Christianity has much in common with the core experience and the mystical teachings of other major world religions, as well. Such growth, when mature and well schooled, does not throw out your well-established faith and tradition. Instead, you integrate and transcend what went before from a higher level of consciousness. You see life and the faith journey from a much higher perspective than you ever previously imagined.