 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. Welcome back to Tan Fans for another great podcast on Spiritual Masters. You know, Tan is a publisher of The Saints, and in this series we're focusing on great saints who maybe have not had as much coverage and popularity as they should in recent years. And so, we're here today with our very special guest and translator and partner here at Tan, Father Robert Nixon. Thank you for being here, Father. Thanks very much, Carter. It's a pleasure to be here talking to you today. So, we're talking about the great Seraphic Doctor of the Church, St. Bonaventure. And I have a special appreciation for the Franciscans. I've been to a C.C. three times or maybe four times, considered being a Franciscan at one point, I guess, in my life before I met my wife. And I love their spirit and their charism. And I love the works of Bonaventure that I've read, especially this new work that we have coming out that we're going to talk about in our next episode entitled The Seven Last Words of Christ that you've so beautifully translated. But in this episode, we're going to focus on Bonaventure the man and his life and times and works. But let's begin with a prayer seeking Bonaventure's intercession for us. Oh, Lord, we ask that you guide our conversation today in parts of wisdom and truth. We ask this through the intercession of your Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, and all the early saints, all the early Franciscan saints through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. You know, St. Bonaventure was quite the, I don't know, Renaissance man, or he was not just a Franciscan, he was a bishop, he was a cardinal. He was a great professor. He was a spiritual writer, a theologian, and also a world class philosopher. I get the sense he was even a good administrator. He was just kind of good at whatever he did. But what can you tell us about this man and his early life and his how he was destined to become a Franciscan? Yeah, so a very remarkable character, Bonaventure. And the Franciscan order was, I was actually thinking of becoming a Franciscan before I became a Benedict at one stage in my life. And St. Bonaventure, well, he was born, we don't know too much about his family, but he was born in about 1220. And we do know from what he's related that when he was a young infant, he fell very ill and his life was in peril. And at this stage, St. Francis of Assisi was still alive and was venerated throughout Italy. So his mother took the infant Bonaventure, or Giovanni, as he was known then, to visit St. Francis, who was revered as a living saint. And asked for his prayers that the infant would survive. And at that point, the prayers of St. Francis were answered and young Bonaventure recovered. And she committed him to a life of service in the Franciscan order. And so it came to pass. We shouldn't imagine though that he became a Franciscan only because his mother had promised him. He felt also that as a call for God and felt very inspired by the life of St. Francis. And in the early days of the Franciscan order, they were spreading extremely rapidly throughout Italy, especially and throughout other parts of Europe. This was the time of St. Francis, St. Anthony of Padua, and then very shortly after St. Bonaventure. So he entered the Franciscans at the age of about 20 and was very soon distinguished himself by his scholastic capacity. So was sent to the University of Paris to study. And the University of Paris at that time was the great academic center of the church and of Europe. And there he distinguished himself very quickly by his wonderful theological writings and soon rose to become a very distinguished professor. Now, it happened also around this time while he was serving in Paris that he was elected Superior General of the Franciscan order and somewhat reluctantly because he was a very humble man. He took on this great role. And at this time, the Franciscan order was still an emerging organization. And there were various divisions within it. There were those who felt that we should do exactly what St. Francis did, practice literal poverty, that the order shouldn't even own any property as a kind of corporate entity, that it didn't need to have a juridical structure and so forth, where there are others who were who were seeking to to organize the order a little bit more so that it could function more effectively so that it would be able to send people for formation for the priesthood and for studies and so forth. So Bonaventure was instrumental in reconciling and holding together these two groups as best as he could. So he wrote firmly in defense of what the leadership of the Franciscan order was doing, but also wrote with a great deal of sympathy for those who preferred to follow the literal lifestyle of poverty. And he became also involved in the church at a leadership level. So he was instrumental in the election of Gregory the Tenth as Pope. And shortly after this, Gregory the Tenth asked him to become cardinal Bishop of Albano in Italy, which he again reluctantly accepted. Now, if we look at his corpus of writings, we find there's an immense amount of stuff there. There are the scholastic writings, his commentaries on the sentences of Peter Lombard, his various books of distinctions, almost it's always as large as the theological writings of Thomas Aquinas. On top of this, he also wrote a huge number of mystical works on mystical theology, the best known of which today is probably the Iteranium Mentus in Deum, the journey of the mind into God. And this book is an absolute classic, talks about the mind's progressive journey into God through a series of meditative steps. He wrote also a lot of wonderful instructions for people living the religious life and the spiritual life. He wrote a great deal of poetry as well, fantastic poetry, most of which hasn't been translated into English. It's quite difficult to translate into English because the Latin rhymes so consistently and to keep that in English is really, really hard. And if you lose the rhyme, you lose a lot of the effect of it. One of his most outstanding works though in poetic form is the seven last words of Christ. And this was supported by a range of commentaries on these seven last words which are scattered throughout his other works. But he was a wonderful author and when we look at his life and we reflect that he lived only for 53 years. He died in about 1273. It's amazing that one person could do so much. And Thomas Aquinas was a close friend of his. And Thomas Aquinas once commented when he found out that St. Bonaventure was writing the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He said it's fitting that the life of one saint should be written by another saint. So he regarded Bonaventure as a saint while he was still alive. And Bonaventure of course had a very high regard for Thomas as well. So Bonaventure was invited to write the liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi, which was a newly established feast at that time. And he said, look, I'm not worthy of this. Give it to my friend Thomas. He'll do a much better job than I could. So we see this wonderful relationship mutual esteem and mutual humility between these two great figures, Bonaventure and Thomas. Where they differ, I guess, is that most of Thomas' work is written for students of theology. That's it's scholastic. That's what that means. It's basically textbooks to help them prepare for their exams. Whereas Bonaventure wrote some books like that, but he also wrote a lot more spiritually and mystically at times. And it's those mystical works of Bonaventure, which are my particular love. I was going to ask you about what is mystical theology, because I often see his name associated with that. Is it just theology that's distinguished from scholastic theology? What does mystical theology really refer to? So mystical theology is an approach to theology, which has its ultimate goal in contemplation in the leaving behind of all thoughts and words and concepts to have this encounter with God, an unmediated encounter with God. So that is very much what mystical theology is about. And that is, I think, where Bonaventure really excels. I saw a quote once that said Bonaventure was the saint who did theology on his knees. And it's referring to, it was a theology for him was a spiritual work, because the purpose of it was to enlighten the mind and motivate the heart to be more intimate with God, as opposed to just learning for learning's sake. Yeah. That's a very insightful comment, Cotter. And when we read Bonaventure's work, there's often a blurred line between this theology and mysticism. So his mysticism is always firmly grounded in a strong and solid theology. But his theology is always done with a kind of prayerful humility and openness to this, as he would describe it, as this illuminating ray of light. So yeah, definitely a wonderful author in that respect. And of course, that was, when we read the Life of Thomas Aquinas, that was part of his life as well. It's just he was writing in a particular genre. He was writing to help students prepare for their exams. Well, but it does seem that there's a difference in emphasis between the Franciscan tradition and the Dominican tradition. Well, that would be true. And the church needs that, like the church needs these different temperaments, very much so. So it's fine, the church's umbrella is very large, and it has to have all those. So another thing I wanted to mention to you, I think this is in perfect keeping with everything you're saying, I found a quote one day, actually reading Etienne Jilson's biography or a short biography on the life of Bonaventure. It's more of a preface to one of Bonaventure's collected works. And it had a quote in there by Bonaventure, and I printed it out on paper, and I put it above my computer screen in my office. And it says, it's actually a Latin phrase, which I can't ever remember how to say it exactly in Latin. But what it says is, you cannot know the words of Saint Paul if you do not have the spirit of Saint Paul. And it's a quote by Bonaventure. And that was sort of his teaching in the sense of, if you want to understand the words of a saint, you sort of have to have the spirit of a saint. And I find that to just be a perfect sort of segue, I think, into investigating the works of Bonaventure, you could easily change that up and say, you cannot know the words of Bonaventure if you do not have the spirit of Bonaventure. And so that's what's important, I think, in investigating these spiritual masters, is to kind of know their spirit so that then we can better understand their words. Yeah. And I think reading the works of Bonaventure also works the other way. It imbues the reader with something of his spirit. And he was a saint who was always looking at this kind of divine illumination. It's interesting that he chose the name Bonaventure as his religious name. And it means in Latin, good things to come. So he was always focused on the eternal realities of heaven. So, yeah, a wonderful saint and very, very illuminating, very enlightening. I always find him very touching to read his works. So he was given the name Seraphic Doctor. You know, the different doctors have different. So give us some examples of some other doctors like Bernard and Aquinas. That's a special one. A Seraphic is as good as you get. So we've got Anselm, the Doctor Magnificus, who we spoke about. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Doctor Malifluous, the Malifluous or the Honey Flowing Doctor because of his eloquence. Don Scotis, who is not, he's a blessing, not a saint yet, is known as the subtle doctor. Raymond Lull, who is one who we're talking about doing his life, is known as the Illuminated Doctor. William of Occam, who was never actually made a saint, is probably not as religious. But he's known as the more than subtle doctor, which is slightly ironic. I didn't know that. Yeah. Dennis the Carthusian, the Ecstatic Doctor. Thomas Aquinas, of course, the Angelic Doctor and probably the most, Albert the Great, the Doctor Universalis, the Universal Doctor. But Bonaventure, I think, is the highest possible Appalachian that can be given, which is the Seraphic Doctor. So this is talking about the Seraphim, the Angels, who are the very highest rank in the Celestial Court and who are in the presence of God, who have no other role but the contemplation of the face and the glory of God. I think this is a very fitting title that's given to Bonaventure. And perhaps the difference between the Angelic Doctor, because the Angels is a lower rank, but they're involved in the administration of earthly things, go-betweens between heaven and earth. And Thomas Aquinas did this very well, because his work, his writing at least, is focused on helping out students to prepare for their exams, on giving them the knowledge in a clear and concise way. Whereas with Bonaventure, I think there's much more of this contemplation of the divine glory shining through. Which is a perfect name for somebody who does theology on their knees. Indeed. Well, I look forward to getting more into his particular work that you've translated for us on the seven last words of Christ. And so in our next episode, we're going to dive into that. But this has been a great overview of Bonaventure. And I hope that he intercedes for us in our continued conversation. And I hope that our customers and listeners begin to actively engage with Bonaventure in their prayer life. He is such a powerful saint, and is often kind of put in that category of theologians over there in the corner that you study in school, as opposed to somebody who's useful to us in our day-to-day life. So with that, I thank you for being here and thank you for all this great insight and background to the great spiritual master, Saint Bonaventure. God bless you, Father. Thank you. Thanks so much, Connor. 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.