“As Jesus was the true worshiper of the Father, so let
prayer and contemplation be the soul of all they are and do.” ( Art. 8, Secular Franciscan Rule)
On July 15th, we celebrated the feast of Saint
Bonaventure. Born during the time of
Saint Francis, he attended the University of Paris, became both a Franciscan
friar and professor while at that university.
He would become the 7th Minister General of the Order, and
because of the work he did bringing the Order together, he has been called the
second founder of the First Order. He
would end his life as a bishop, working for the reunion of the Western and
Eastern branches of Christianity.
Above all, though, Bonaventure is known as a mystic, who
wrote, besides treatises on philosophy and theology, works on the mystical life
of the Christians, which still inspire many people to this day. Despite the demands of the many offices he
held, Bonaventure still found time for prayer, time to be still in God’s
presence and experience, as Francis did, the power and joy of the Father’s
love. He was able to share these
experiences with us, especially in his treatise, “The Soul’s Journey into God.”
We are all called to a life of prayer, it is to provide a
foundation for our lives, and the “soul” of the work we do in the world. It is through prayer, Scripture and the
Eucharist that we can have that encounter with our loving God, that we too can
have that mystical experience; that Francis called the first step for a life of
conversion. That experience may be like
hearing a soft breeze, as the prophet Elijah did; or it may like an angel
hitting us in the back of heads with a baseball bat, as Fr. Andrew Greeley
related in one of his novels. The
important thing is that we keep ourselves open for that experience, through
prayer, through being still and resting in the Lord.
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