Saint Bonaventure

THE life of Saint Bonaventure, the "Seraphic Doctor," is now appropriately presented to the public as the first of the Franciscan lives in this "Series of the Lives of the Friar Saints". Till the days of this" Second Founder of the Franciscan Order," the simplicity of our Holy Father St. Francis had been the salient feature of his institute: no successful effort had hitherto been made to organize the growing Order unto the full measure of its efficiency. Speaking generally, everything so far had been left to individual initiative, and the keynote of those early days is struck in the liberty enjoyed by the individual-a liberty which, though charming to contemplate and of irresistible appeal to a democratic age, is yet incompatible with the distinctive work a corporate body must perforce fulfil if its deeds are to justify its existence. To effect this purpose a certain amount of that rigid uniformity attendant on all organization was imperatively demanded. Under the influence of St. Bonaventure this was successfully accomplished. Among the many elements that entered into this process of development we must, perhaps, assign the most conspicuous place to the systematic pursuit of learning which our Saint engrafted on St. Francis' ideal of contemplation and zeal, and which, under the guidance of God's Providence, has been destined to render the Franciscan Order an effective force in dealing with the world's most vital problems. Together with this pursuit of learning came the introduction into the Order of a uniform exterior observance; an observance inculcated and fostered by a systematized code of Constitutions and ordinances which remain substantially the same to-day as when first framed centuries ago. The life of St. Bonaventure may, accordingly, be considered as the ideal to which the modern Franciscan tends: an ideal in which the simp1icity of St. Francis is blended with a thorough grasp of the latest developments in scientific thought: in which personal holiness, because cognizant of self-weakness, is large hearted and generous in its sympathy with others: in which the multitudinous details of active and administrative life are raised by a strong interior spirit from what might be a fertile source of distraction into a means of closer union with God. We have now but to add that the following pages on the life-work of St. Bonaventure, written by the late Fr. Laurence Costelloe, O.F.M., are based on the critical life of the Seraphic Doctor contained in the tenth volume of his works (Quaracchi, 1902). At the request of his superiors he intended to revise and publish his work, but sudden death frustrated his design. This revision has now been undertaken by the Rev. Fr. Leo, O. F. M., who has verified the sources, and introduced such changes as were demanded by the prescribed length of this work.