SUCKLING THE HEAVENLY CHILD

SAINT BONAVENTURE, BISHOP, DOCTOR

Exod 2: 1-15; Ps 69:3,14,30-31,33-34; Mt 11:20-24

We are Drawn out of the Water

When we hear the word of God and open our hearts to it, we grasp the truth of God, a heavenly reality. The Eternal Word is himself the minister of the word of God, for in the parable of the Sower, he referred to the Son of Man as the Sower of the good seeds. Hence, all who minister the word of God are instrumental agents of the Eternal Word. In this capacity, we consider him to be the High Priest of God’s religion. He is the only High Priest or Sacerdo because he alone gives holy things. By attending to the heavenly bridegroom and opening our hearts and minds in love to his word, we conceive a heavenly child. The heavenly child is the spirit that the Holy Spirit brings to birth in us. So, we can say of the spirit within each of us that he is conceived of the Holy Spirit, as we say of the Son of Man. Hence, we have come to recognise the spirit in each of us, which unites with the Holy Spirit, as Jesus Christ within us. The spirit within each Christian is a heavenly son, God’s reality within us. The holy son cannot be destroyed unless the one who conceives him starves him to death. Because he is conceived of heavenly word, he cries for heavenly nourishment, and dies if not well suckled with heavenly milk, in communion with the Holy Spirit. Alas for the one who refuses to conceive the heavenly son.

We see a type of this mystery in the conception and birth of Moses in Egypt, who was to deliver the children of Israel from their house of slavery in Egypt. Both parents were Levites, a tribe dedicated to the priestly work. “There was a man of the tribe of Levi who had taken a woman of Levi as his wife. She conceived and gave birth to a son and, seeing what a fine child he was, she kept him hidden for three months.” Moses could not be hidden for a longer time, for he was born to live a public or priestly life. “When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him.” The heavenly life we have cannot be hidden, as Jesus confirmed when he said that nobody lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel basket. The lamp we have lit is supposed to be on the lampstand to give light to all in the house. The spirit that is our life now has an internal interaction with God, but it must bear witness to these interactions openly to shed light on those imprisoned in darkness and falsehood. As Moses’ mother did not kill him, Pharaoh’s daughter could not either. But she employed the child’s mother to suckle him, for only the one who conceived him can suckle him. The Lord provides the mother of the child with the milk to suckle the heavenly baby. The Father, through the Holy Spirit he gives us, provides the daily milk and bread we need to suckle the heavenly child we bear in our mortal bodies, until he matures into the Son of Man. “When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharoah’s daughter, who treated him like a son; she named him Moses because, she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’

By our baptism into Jesus Christ, we are all drawn out of water to live the new and spiritual life we now have in Jesus Christ. Though we live and move around in the world among men, we have a heavenly life and origin, and to that end, we must direct our gaze, motion, and striving. The same vision and goal formed Saint Bonaventure’s whole life and teachings. He was born at Bagnoregio in Etruria around 1218. He became a Franciscan in 1243 and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Paris. He grew to be a famous teacher and philosopher. He was part of the extraordinary intellectual flowering of the 13th century. He was a friend and colleague of St. Thomas Aquinas. He defended the Franciscan Order from many objections to their novel mendicant way of life and strict poverty. He was elected the general Servant of the Order in 1255, and he ruled it with wisdom and prudence. He is regarded as the second founder of the Franciscan Order. He declined the archbishopric of York in 1265 but was made cardinal bishop of Albano in 1273. He died after a year in 1274 at the Council of Lyons. His seminal work in mysticism, titled Itinerarium Mentis in Deum—The Journey of the Soul into God—describes the soul’s ascent into God through contemplation of heavenly truths and love of God. The divine truths are the food on which our spirits thrive as we transform into Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that, just as we celebrate the heavenly birthday of the Bishop Saint Bonaventure, we may benefit from his great learning and constantly imitate the ardour of his charity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.