Feast day: July 15

St. Bonaventure

Bishop & Doctor of the Church · 1221–1274

Patron of Theologians

Franciscan master general and cardinal called the 'Seraphic Doctor,' who matched Aquinas in brilliance while governing a sprawling order.

Bonaventure was born about 1217 at Bagnoregio in central Italy and, as a child, was — according to tradition — cured of a grave illness through the prayers of St. Francis of Assisi, who is said to have exclaimed 'O buona ventura!' ('O good fortune!'), giving the boy his name. He entered the Franciscan Order as a young man and went to study at the great University of Paris.

There he became one of the master theologians of the thirteenth century, the golden age of scholasticism, teaching alongside his friend St. Thomas Aquinas. Where Thomas was the supreme intellectual, Bonaventure married learning to a profound mysticism, always drawing the mind upward toward the love of God — which earned him the title 'the Seraphic Doctor.'

At only thirty-six he was elected Minister General of the Franciscans, and he governed the order at a critical moment, when it was deeply divided over how strictly to keep St. Francis's ideal of poverty. With wisdom and balance he steadied and reorganized it, and wrote the official life of St. Francis; he is often called the order's 'second founder.'

Made a cardinal and bishop against his wishes, he played a leading role at the Second Council of Lyons, working for reunion with the Eastern Church, and died during the council in 1274. Canonized in 1482, he was declared a Doctor of the Church and is honoured as a patron of theologians.

When papal envoys brought his cardinal's hat, they found him washing dishes. He asked them to hang it on a tree until he finished.

Image: Claude François (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/02648c.htm