JOURNEYING INTO GOD

SAINT BONAVENTURE, BISHOP, DOCTOR

Isa 10:5-7, 13-16; Ps 94:5-10,14-15; Mt 11:25-27

Treasure of Our Spiritual Life

Our spiritual life is a gift from God. It is a life that the word of God caused to sprout in us, making us present to God. The word of God is the primary source of God's revelation. All the effects of the word in the world and in us individually are geared toward making the Father known. So, the new spiritual life it engenders in us is a revelation of God within each of us. Because it is a precious effect of our reception of God’s word within us, God the Father orders all things within and without to foster its growth, for it is the life of the Son within us. The growth of our interior life does not depend entirely on God, but also on our cooperation with the graces God sends to us daily. Without this cooperation, which faith fosters in us, our spiritual lives cannot grow. The needed cooperation is prompted and supported by a good prayer life. The reason is that prayer is the primary act of faith in God. Hence, a spiritual person prays at all times. This does not mean spending all the time in the church, chapel, or before our altar in the house, but being conscious of Jesus Christ within us at all times, if possible. When a business or engagement leads us away from his presence, we must return as soon as possible. By this practice, he becomes the beginning of all we do and say, and the end also, for we will do all to please him.

When we are deeply connected to God in this manner, we gradually understand the depth of God’s love and providential care for us, although the divine love revealed in Jesus Christ is beyond our comprehension. This is the revelation of the mystery of God that our Lord praises the Father for giving it to mere children in the Gospel. “Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.” What makes those who enter the interior path to God become like children is their dependence on God, which they develop gradually as we have described above. As children rarely leave the presence of their parents at a tender age, so do those who receive spiritual birth ought to remain always in the presence of God interiorly in order to become familiar with the presence and voice of God. Furthermore, children remain with their parents because they are fed regularly. The same reason we are to remain in God’s presence to feed on his word. Jesus feeds us with bread from heaven. “Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”            

The tender children can only grow on the strength of the food they eat from their mother. As they mature, the nature of the food they take changes from milk and liquid food to solid and hard food suited for their age and maturity. The graduation is easy because they are guided by their parents. The same experience is had in spiritual life. Familiarity with God, gained through consistent enjoyment of his presence, meditation, and contemplation of his word, helps us to know that everything comes to us from the loving hand of God the Father. When this spiritual development is lacking, we doubt the hand of God in what comes to us. We start putting ourselves in the place of God, which is the origin of idolatry. We falsely presume that our hands have won our victories, and our crosses and sufferings are due to the enemies' scheming against us, and the absence of God with us. God is in all things and uses everything, as revealed by Isaiah. “Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the club brandished by me in my fury!” God uses everything for the good of those who love him. Assyria idolised its strength against other nations in vain. “For he said: ‘By the strength of my own arm I have done this and by my own intelligence, for understanding is mine; I have pushed back the frontiers of peoples and plundered their treasures.”

The gradual growth in the knowledge and love of God in every soul that frequents the presence of God, as we described above, is what Saint Bonaventure described in his work on the journey of a soul into God. He was born at Bagnoregio in Etruria about 1218. He became a Franciscan in 1243 and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Paris. He became a famous teacher and philosopher, part of the extraordinary intellectual flowering of the 13th century. He was a friend and colleague of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He was elected the general of the Franciscan Order in 1255; he served and defended the Order with wisdom and prudence. He is regarded as the second founder of the Order. He declined the archbishopric of York in 1265 but was made cardinal bishop of Albano in 1273. He died a year later in 1274 at the Council of Lyons, where the Greek and Latin churches were briefly reconciled. He was a spiritual master and a doctor of the Church. He wrote extensively on theological and philosophical issues. May his prayers help us to journey intentionally to God.

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.