 Welcome to The Spiritual Masters, a podcast from Tan Books and Tan Direction in which we look at the greatest and holiest writers from Catholic history. Join us as we explore the life and times in which they lived, an overview and study of their greatest works, and how we as Catholics can look to these masters as models for our own holiness on our journey to heaven. Well, welcome back, Father Robert Nixon. Thank you for being here. We're talking today about Bonaventure, the great Seraphic doctor. In last episode, we went through his biography and today we are jumping into an amazing work that you have translated and it's a real gift to the church because the seven last words of Christ is a work by Bonaventure that has been lost to the ages. So we're going to go through each of the words and go through it so that our listeners get a good idea of what this works all about. But let's begin as we always do with a quick prayer invoking the intercession of St. Bonaventure. Oh, Lord, you sent your only begotten Son into this world to suffer and die for our sins and to teach us the way to heaven. He offered us his final and definitive lesson on the cross on which he made that great sacrifice. We ask through the intercession of St. Bonaventure that we may listen with reverence and contemplate with true honor these seven last words of your Son. We ask this through the same Christ, our Lord, our bed. Amen. Thank you, Father. Now, seven last words. There have been many works throughout history. Everybody from Fulton, Sheen to others have written on the seven last words of Christ. But it's my understanding that you might have uncovered the very first composition of the seven last words of Christ. Yeah. Yeah. And it's actually very interesting because if you read any one of the Gospels, you'll find that it is, I shouldn't say when we say words, it's not individual words, but it's sentences, utterances, that if you read any given Gospel, you won't find that there are seven. There will be different numbers. But if you read all of the Gospels together, you will find seven. And in church, in our Catholic tradition, going back to the Jewish tradition, the number seven is particularly important. It's a number which represents perfection, completion, consummation. So we find, for example, the seven sorrows of Mary, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven... Well, I can't think of another one, but there are definitely... Seven sacraments. Seven sacraments, of course. So the seven... In fact, seven... Augustine says that there are seven beatitudes, and the eighth one is the summation of the other seven. Some people say eight beatitudes. He said there's seven plus a combination of all. So seven's a sacred number. It is very much so. And so now, this concept of the seven last words of Christ came to public attention or came to be popularly known because of a certain poem which St. Bonaventure wrote, basically called the seven last words of Christ, the seven words of Christ upon the cross. Now, I did a little investigation as to where Bonaventure had got this concept of seven words from. And there was a much earlier writer, a 10th century Benedictine abbot, Arnold of Bonaville, who wrote a tract on the seven last words of Christ. And this seems to have been the first origin of thinking of these as seven words. There's also a certain prayer attributed to the venerable bead called on the seven last words of Christ, but we're not quite sure if Beed really wrote that, or if it was a later author. But certainly Bonaventure's writing reflects the fact that he had read this work by Arnold of Bonaville, and he used that as his starting point for his own work. So in this volume, you have done what with these two works? So what I have done is I have combined Bonaventure's writings, both in his poem, as well as in his other scriptural commentaries and some of his other writings like the Mystical Vine with the commentary by Arnold of Bonaville. So this work is kind of bringing together of these different reflections upon the seven last words. So the principal author is Bonaventure, but the works of Arnold, which formed his kind of conceptual framework are in there as well. Yeah, it flows beautifully, and it all comes together. Today, we're going to kind of focus on Bonaventure's portion of this, because he's our spiritual master for today. He did. But let's get into the first word. Now, the first word or first sentence is Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now, when we talk about this, I'm going to read the very first kind of few sentences from Bonaventure on this, because I want to talk about the Mystical Vine. He likens this as he goes through to the Mystical Vine. He says, quote, there are seven words or pronouncements, which Christ uttered whilst elevated upon the cross, which may be likened to seven rich and verdant leaves springing forth upon a mystical vine. And you inserted the cross itself being the spiritual vine. Again, the wood of the cross may be likened to the frame of a lyre, and these seven words imagined to be the seven strings extended upon it. It's a beautiful image. So talk to us about Bonaventure chooses this mystical vine springing forth from the cross. If I understand that right, tell us about that imagery that he adopts throughout this entire work. Yes, yes. So this is something which he refers to the idea of the cross as this mystical vine, and that from it are springing forth these seven flowers or seven fruits. And I think this is particularly rich because the cross is, on the one hand, it's both a tree of death, but for Bonaventure it became this wonderful tree of glorious new life. And these seven pronouncements, which take place from the cross, which pour forth from the cross, embody the whole of the gospel. That was the idea that in his last, the seven last words of the cross were like the final testimony of Jesus to the world. I forgot to ask that earlier in kind of the introductory remarks. That's the coolest thing about this is the seven last words of Christ are seen as a summation of all the gospel. They are. And that's an amazing thing. You encapsulate all the things that Christ talked about for three years on the cross. Very much. And I mean, the Father forgive them for they know not what they do. It exemplifies to us both this quality of mercy and forgiveness, which was so important in Christ's teaching. If someone hits you on one cheek, turn the other. How many times must I forgive the person who offends me? Not seven, but seven times seven. So this is a repeated theme. So it reminds us of that. It also reminds us. Blessed are the merciful indeed, as well as asking us to be merciful ourselves. It reminds us of the mercy of God, that God is prepared to forgive each one of us, because in a certain sense, each one of us don't know fully what we're doing. There's a beautiful passage here. And he says, oh, reader, and I love it when these saints talk to us. Oh, reader, treasure this precious sleeve zealously within the depths of your heart. Then whenever you're afflicted by any enemy, you'll be able to summon to your mind the memory of the abundant sweetness of the supremely merciful Jesus. You'll be able to use this saying as a powerful shield against any insults which may be directed against you and any aspersions cast upon you. The divine spouse prayed for those who killed him. Will you not pray for those who insult and criticize you? So as Bonaventure, our spiritual master, telling us, hey, look, you should be able to forgive people who do these little insults against you when Christ could forgive the very people who were crucifying him. Yes, that's very true. And you think about the horrendous pain which Christ suffered and the horrendous injustice of it all. And we so often get offended at the slightest things. I'm not ready to forgive others. Yeah, absolutely. So the second word, I'm flipping to it, is page 33. And it is, amen, I say to thee today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. So we have this incredible moment of the good thief. So once you just tell, I mean, our readers probably know the basics, but once you just encapsulate that scene from the gospel. So this is a scene which we encounter only in the Gospel of Luke, interestingly enough, of the repentant thief who, according to tradition, is known as Saint Dismas. Dismas, yeah. And this thief reprimands the one who is mocking him and he says, have you no fear of God? Seek that thou art under the same condemnation and we are condemned justly. And Jesus replies to him, I will tell you, I tell you that this day you will be with me in paradise. So this promise of heaven given to this last minute repentance. And, you know, I know in one of our earlier programs, Connor, we said, you can't fully trust in last minute repentance. But this was very different because his repentance was done in the throes of agony. And it was accompanied by, you know, this heroic act of defending Jesus against those who were mocking him. Yeah. Yeah. And turning towards him completely saying, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. This was a statement of complete faith and surrender. One of the things that amazes me about that event in the Gospel, Father, I thought a lot about this. So here you are dying on the cross, you're in agony. And then Jesus kind of really shocks you and says that you'll be with me in paradise today. Now, he was promised heaven and he knew it and he believed it. If he had an option to get down from the cross and go about living his life, he wouldn't have taken it. No. He was ready to go at that point. So I mean, the happiest moments, I mean, who else do we know that Jesus looked at him and said, you're going to be in paradise with me today. Only this guy. We don't even know if he said that to other people, you know? So this guy, St. Dismas, he was in agony. But you know, in a sense, he was the most satisfied and the most happy and the most fulfilled person in those last few moments. Yeah. And so it shows us, Father, that like our deep sense of peace and serenity and happiness have nothing to do with how our body is feeling at the moment. Yeah. Isn't that an interesting thought? It is. It is. It is. And to think that he was in this agony, that he was able to turn away from himself and to look at Jesus and in doing that to find this consolation, you know? And I think it's a wonderful lesson to each one of us. Whatever situation we're in, we just need to look at Jesus, say, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. And an emphasis, I've heard, you know, I've heard the line, you know, what he said to St. Dismas a thousand times, but Bonaventure emphasizes the personal aspect of this. And I'm reading from Bonaventure. Jesus says, Thou shalt be with me italics. Yeah. Not just that he will be in paradise or that he will be in paradise with the angels, but in paradise and the company of the one whom he recognizes his Savior. Neither does Christ defer what he offers, but promises it that it will be today. Our Lord is quick to hear, quick to promise and quick to give. Who should despair when there is such a ready listener who is unhesitating in his promises and so quick to fulfill what he pledges? I mean, I see Bonaventure here just, you know, just jumping for joy at the personal nature of Jesus Christ and how he's, how he's very quick to give and quick to forgive and quick to promise. That he is always ready to hear these pleas of repentance whenever and wherever they happen and respond immediately. Yeah. No, it's a beautiful sentiment. The third word. I'll just keep on moving through on page 47. The third word and maybe my favorite woman, behold thy son. And then he says to John, behold thy mother. What do you have to say about this one? Yeah, these words are the most touching and profound, I think, in the whole of John's passion narrative. We see that Jesus, even though he was in agony himself, in physical agony, looked down with infinite love upon his blessed mother and upon the beloved disciple John. And this beloved disciple John actually represents not only the Apostle himself, but every faithful Christian disciple. So we see this Jesus is making his mother into our mother. And I think this is, this is a wonderful thing that she is with us all the time with her with the ear of maternal compassion. And Jesus is looking down upon us and telling us to, to venerate her as our very own brothers. So this is a very beautiful and touching thing. Again, I see, I see the man of Bonaventure, our spiritual master kind of coming through the page here. And on page 48, the bottom of page 48, he says, I imagine Mary to have stood with her head covered. How often she must have cried out as she wept, Jesus, my son, who will grant me that I may die in place of you, my son, or that I may now meet my own death with you. How many times must she have raised her tear-filled eyes to his bleeding wounds and again turn them away overcome by sheer horror and grief? I marvel that she herself did not succumb to death. So great were the waves of anguish which engulfed her. I mean, this is Bonaventure, you know, really using his imagination, not just as like some kind of boring theologian, but only like a poet and artist, somebody with a great imagination placing himself in the place of Mary and saying, what was she going through? And he seemed to really tap into what Mary must have been feeling at the foot of the cross. Yes. Bonaventure had this immense love for the Blessed Virgin. And this comes through so powerfully here. And he's able, I think, to share this great compassion with her. You know, this is one of the principal characteristics of the early Franciscan spirituality, the strong identification with the crucified Christ and with the suffering mother came through, of course, in the stigmata on St. Francis of Assisi himself. And this was something which was part of the living reality for the Franciscans. Yeah. On page 59, and by the way, for our listeners, just so you know, we're looking at manuscripts. This book hasn't come out yet. So it's our, it's our page 59. It's not going to be their page 59, most likely, you know, after a book of typeset, the pagination is different. But just so we're on the same page 59, we go on to the fourth word of Christ. Oh, yes. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? And every year in the passion of the liturgy, we hear the priest say, what, how do you say Eli, Eli, lava sabbaktani, you know, something like that, you know. And so we always hear them role play that in the liturgy. And it's beautiful. But it's, and this is perhaps the most confusing. It is, it is the words on the cross. And it's something which, you know, as a priest, I'm very frequently asked about people say, you know, why did he say that? Was he really abandoned? Surely he knew that he wasn't abandoned. And he talks about this. And he explains, Bonaventure offers this wonderful explanation. So he shows himself united with the suffering church in doing this. Because the church is the body of Christ. And Christ himself as the head, of course, was God himself. So it couldn't be abandoned by God. But at the same time, he is in full union with all the suffering of the members of the church, of every individual Catholic, every individual Christian. And so often people feel themselves abandoned by God. And so this question is uttered as the voice of the suffering multitude. So it's an outpouring not only for his own agony, but for the agony of all broken hearts, all crushed spirits throughout the world. It's really a almost a divine sense of empathy. It is. It is. It is. Yeah. Yeah, it's really beautiful. And of course, there's this paradox that Jesus himself is God. So how could he be abandoned by God? But there is also this interpretation that he is abandoning the my part of it. So he is abandoning the self, the human self, to immerse himself to be united mystically with the entire suffering of the world and with the divine infinity of God who is beyond any so. Well, I didn't bring this up before in the in the part on Mary, the previous word, but I read somewhere else and I don't know if this is true, but I found it to be a beautiful insight. Perhaps when he when he said, woman, behold thy son and some behold thy mother, here are these people who are at the foot of the cross supporting him. And that might have been a little metaphorical way of he's detached from his physical health. He's been detached from everything. And here he is voluntarily giving up even his mother and even his beloved disciple. It's like the very last thing that he has to give and he gives his mother away. The very, the very last and the very most precious precious. And so then, you know, when he says, why hast thou forsaken me? He's saying that a time when he's got nothing left. He's given everything, including those who loved him. Yeah. Yeah. So this complete self emptying. Yeah. Yeah. That's a kind of a beautiful notion. I mean, even religious life, you know, you have to leave your family. You have to kind of give up your parents and your siblings. You know, I mean, well, you do. I mean, there's this element of detachment, even though you, you know, it's important still to maintain contact with them and everything. But there is also at a deeper level, this necessity of detachment, of self emptying. Not only for religious life though, I think, but for all Christians, you know, in family life as well, there's this sacrifice of self, this surrender to the will of God. Yeah. Yeah. The next word, the fifth word, page 70, I thirst. I thirst. And yeah, he must have been thirsty at this point. He definitely wanted some water, but it goes beyond that. Yeah. So what do you think he meant? What does Bonaventure say? He really meant when he says, I thirst. So this is, yeah, a very dramatic point when he talks about it. And he concludes his reflection with some very important, I think, a very important insight. As your muscles trembled and your strength waned, that a burning thirst overwhelmed you. This was the first board of pure love, a fervent desire for our salvation. With infinite kindness, then did you say, I thirst? Yes, I thirst for the faith of humankind. I long for their salvation. And it is for this reason alone that I suffer now as I do. So this thirst is expressing this kind of infinite desire, this desire and what's it for? It's not just for physical drink, but a desire for the salvation of every soul there is. You know, Mother Teresa had put in all of the chapels in all the houses that she had for her nuns, crucifix, but then right next to it, I thirst. Yeah. And I think the reason she did that was to remind us of those who they were there to serve. Everyone's thirsting. But Christ is thirsting on their behalf, but most importantly, he's thirsting for our own conversion. And so, I don't know, there's multiple layers to that simple last word. There is. And I think, as you said, to see the hunger and the thirst of Christ in the hunger and thirst of our fellow human beings, that whatever someone calls upon us for help, it's actually Christ who's calling upon us for help. So we are both the ones who are thirsting ourselves in union with Him, and we're the ones who are fulfilling that thirst. Yeah, that's beautiful. The sixth word on page 81, it is consummated. Now, we talked about this slightly in another discussion that we had, but the point I will mention is that the Dewey Reem translation, which is Tan's preferred translation, uses the word, it is consummated. Whereas other translation, RSV, NAB, they say it is finished, or it's over, or it's ended. It's a very different connotation to say it is finished versus it is consummated. So actually, Bonaventure expresses pretty fully what consummation here means. He does, he does. And yeah, this consummation means this bringing something to perfection, to completion, to fulfillment. And he writes, as to its significance, it seems straightforward, yet it contains an immense and unfathomable magnitude of mystical meaning that is replete with very profound and transcendent mysteries. Since it describes a consummation or completion, it is fitting that the words themselves should be brief and simple. Thus it was, in the perfect and life-giving sacrifice of the Son of God, all the ancient sacrifices and rights of the Old Covenant are brought to their single completion. This consummation encompasses the perfection of all the deeds of the patriarchs, all the offerings of the law, all the oracles of the prophets, and all the mystical arcader of the Scriptures. So this is bringing to fulfillment all the promises of God. And I think the idea of consummation in relation to marriage is very important here, because this is the consummation of the mystical unity with divinity and humanity. So when I think of consummation of a marriage, I'm thinking about actually a beginning, like something that's beginning. And so this, to say it is finished, it's so imperfect because this is not, yes, the Old Testament has been fulfilled, but the New Testament has just gotten going, the New Covenant. Indeed, indeed. And that's something which Bodevedt talks about. He says, witness how exultantly Christ exclaims these words. He cries out like the navigator of a ship which has been on an ocean for a long voyage, who when he first catches a glimpse of the shore, shouts, land, oh boy. Yes. So it's like he has achieved what he said. He's achieved his mission, the salvation of the world. So yeah. It's a beautiful notion, you know. Yes, yes, which is so much better than it is ended. It's finished. Absolutely. It's just begun. Yeah, absolutely. And the seventh word, the final word on page 90, Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit. And this is beautiful. I'll just, I'm going to read just the first paragraph. It says, it is noteworthy that of the seven pronouncements made by our Lord Jesus Christ as he approached his death, the Gospel texts say that that three of these were said in a great voice. The first was when he said, Father, why hast thou forsaken me? The second was, it is consummate. And the third occasion was when he said his very last words, Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit. It's just interesting that Bonaventure's zoning in here that he said it in a great voice. He essentially yelled it from the cross. His very last thing he said, he bellowed out for all the world to hear. Indeed. And you know, you might think, well, this is like a personal prayer. So why would he say this one in a loud voice? But Bonaventure gives this very great explanation. He's saying that it clearly reveals his divinity. So he's saying that most people, when they're about to die, they could barely utter any words and the words they say are whispered or barely audible. But Christ here displays his divinity by showing that he's still capable of crying out in this great voice. And, you know, this is perhaps something which, which I, until I read this, hadn't really thought about, you know, what was Christ like actually at the moment of death. And Bonaventure's saying he's showing that he still possesses this, this strength, this omnipotence of divinity, even though he is dying. He voluntarily dies. You know, I mean, he could, he could have overcome it that moment. Well, he could, he could. And so he says, I love this. He says, just as a victorious warrior cries out when he has conquered his foes or put them to flight, even so did Jesus cry out strongly when he had defeated death and sin. I mean, that's a victorious warrior. Right there hanging on the cross is the sacrificial lamb. That's, that's a powerful concept. This is, this is, it's magnificent. You know, and as I said, Conor, I hadn't imagined it in that way ever before, but it really does shed a great light upon this, you know, that this commending his spirit into the hands of his father isn't, isn't just a surrender. This is a cry of victory. You know, he's, he's finished his mission, as he said in the consumatum est, and now he's just making his journey homeward. Yeah. Oh, it's powerful. What an amazing book. Thank you for translating this. I mean, this was a great find. And then you had to artistically put these together with the other work in the book to kind of give it a full completion. And it's, it's, you've done a tremendous service to give us access to something that's never been in English before. I mean, this is a resurrection of an incredible work by the Seraphic Doctor, a great spiritual master. So what a, what a wonderful gift. Thank you very much for your work here. Thanks so much, Conor. And it's, you know, a great pleasure for me, a great thrill that Ted is working to bring these treasures to resurrect these great treasures for the reading public today. Well, in our next episode, we're going to kind of wrap up Bonaventure and talk about what he has to offer us in our own spiritual journey each day we live on this earth and how to seek his intercession and become more like him. So until then, thank you and God bless Father for being here. Thank you, Conor. God bless. This has been an episode of The Spiritual Masters, a podcast brought to you by Tan. To follow the show, learn about more inspiring holy men and women and to support The Spiritual Masters and other great free content from Tan. Visit spiritualmasterspodcast.com to subscribe and use coupon code masters25 to get 25% off your next order, including works by Saint Bonaventure and countless more spiritual masters to strengthen your faith and interior life. And thanks for listening.