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Benedict XVI on St. Bonaventure
For an international congress marking the
8th centenary of the Seraphic Doctor’s birth
by Amedeo Lomonaco
Translated from the Italian service of
VATICAN RADIO
November 15, 2017
“Looking at the program for the symposium and the topics to be discussed, I realize how much the figure of St. Bonaventure has been greatly enriched, and therefore, how much he has to say to us at this particular historical moment.”
This is what Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI writes in his message to the participants of the international congress “Deus Summe Cognoscibilis. L’attualità teologica di San Bonaventura” (God most knowable: The theological relevance of St. Bonaventure). 48 scholars from around the world are taking part in the congress which began yesterday and will last till Friday.
[ Full translation of the message below]
The event to commemorate the eighth centenary of the birth of St. Bonaventure is part of a series of international congresses sponsored by the Pontifical Gregorian University since 1974. The congress intends to explore the many ways in which St. Bonaventure remains a stimulating interlocutor, through the potential of his thinking for meeting current challenges to philosophical, theological and spiritual reflection.
Presented at this congress is Volume II of Joseph R OPERA OMNIA entitled “Understanding revelation and the theology of history in St. Bonaventure”, the first integral translation into Italian of the emeritus Pope’s dissertation to obtain his Habilitation or license to be a professor in German universities back in 1957.
The first day of the Congress dealt with St. Bovanenture’s theological method and Revelation. The second day is dedicated to his theology of creation and Christology. The third and last day will consider ecclesiological themes.
The Congress is being held under the ausices of three academic institutions: the Pontifical Gregorian Unviersity, the St. Bovaneture Theological Faculty ‘Seraphicum’, and the Pontifical Antonianum University.
Giovanni Fidanza, known to us as Bonaventure, was born in 1218 in Bagnoregio. As a child, he became seriously ill but he was healed after a meeting with Francis of Assisi who on that occasion said to him, ‘ Bona ventura’ (Good things happen). And from then on, he called himself Bonaventure. He joined the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) to fulfill the vow his mother made.
In 1257, he was elected the 7th Superior General of the Franciscans. He steered the Franciscans on a moderate and intellectual course that made them the most prominent order in the Catholic Church until the coming of the Jesuits. His theology was marked by an attempt completely to integrate faith and reason. He thought of Christ as the "one true master" who offers humans knowledge that begins in faith, is developed through rational understanding, and is perfected by mystical union with God.
He died in 1274 at the age of 56 and was canonised in 1484 by the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV. Pope Sixtus V proclaimed him Doctor of the Church in 1588, with the title Doctor Seraphicus. Among St. Bonaventure’s works, the best known is “Itinerarium mentis in Deum” (The mind’s road to God), a philosophical, theological and mystical itinerary for man in his ascent of the six steps to God and the peace of contemplation.
[Although he was a theologian, he was regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages. Much of St. Bonaventure’s philosophical thought shows a considerable influence by St. Augustine. So much so that some medeivalists consider him the best medieval representative of Augustinianism.
St. Bonaventure adds Aristotelian principles to the Augustinian doctrine, especially in connection with the illumination of the intellect and the composition of human beings and other living creatures in terms of matter and form. Augustine, who had introduced into the west many of the doctrines that would define scholastic philosophy, was an incredibly important source of Bonaventure's Platonism. The mystic Dionysius the Areopagite was another notable influence.]
Fr. Federico Lombardi, president of the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI, said:
”The emeritus Pope devoted to St. Bonaventure a very important study when he was a young man. It was his dissertation to obtain his Habilitation to teach in German universities. In the course of his life, he has devoted to the Doctor Seraphicus a series of significant interventions.
Thus, the Congress also is the occasion for presenting Vol. II of the Pope’s OPERA OMNIA, recently translated into Italian, which presents the full manuscript Joseph Ratzinger originally wrote for this dissertation [the dissertation he defended successfully to earn him his Habilitation was only Part 2 of what he had written, which he rewrote for submission after his thesis adviser had rejected the full manuscript].
It must be noted that during Vatican-II, Joseph Ratzinger’s interventions on Revelation as a theological expert clearly showed the influence of Bonaventure’s thought. As Pope, he dedicated three catecheses to Bonaventure. And of course, he spoke extensively of him during his pastoral visit to Viterbo and Bagnoregio (Bonaventure’s birthplace) on September 6, 2009.
Benedict XVI's letter
It presupposes familiarity with the names and ideas he mentions, so I will provide some footnotes.
Most Reverend Professor,
We are approaching the date for the important symposium on St. Bonaventure organized by you on the occasion of the eighth centenary of the theologian’s birth.
I very gladly address to all the participants these words of thanks and my greeting. When your invitation reached me, I had just finished rereading the book of Fernand von Steerberghen (1) on the 13th century. Looking over the themes of the symposium, I realize with satisfaction how in the decades that have passed since he wrote it, our knowledge of the 13th century has truly grown and deepened, even with regard to the Seraphic Doctor.
Whereas at the time Bonaventure was considered almost exclusively in relationship to the Aristotelians of his time, today our knowledge of the profundity of his personality and the rich perspective of his thought has considerably grown.
Meanwhile it has clearly emerged, for instance, how Gioacchino da Fiore (2) was not just an outsider with his eccentric ideas, but the encounter of his ideas with the thought of St. Francis of Assisi uncovered new perspectives that reach into the depths of theology itself. It is also evident how the different ways in which the Pseudo-Dionysius (3) was received, which led to new focal points in theology and the spiritual life, have contributed to modify our knowledge of the 13th century.
The acknowledgment, that was very important for Bonaventure, that love is a force of knowledge in the intellectual darkness, represents a view of man that is completely different from that of St. Augustine. (4)
Looking at the program for the symposium and the topics to be discussed, I realize how much the figure of St. Bonaventure has been greatly enriched, and therefore, how much he has to say to us at this particular historical moment.
For this reason, I cannot but be thankful for what shall be discussed in depth at the symposium. I am happy for what I shall learn from the discussion texts even if I may not be able to read the entire weighty oeuvre that your program promises.
While expressing once more my heartfelt gratitude for your work, I send you my best wishes for the Symposum.
BENEDICT XVI
Notes:
1) Steerberghen (1904-1993) was a Belgian priest and Thomist philosopher-theologian who specialized in the history of the 13th and 14th centuries.
2) To understand Benedict XVI’s allusion to Gioacchino (Joachim) da Fiore, I will append the second of his three catecheses on St. Bonaventure in which he explains the situation in the Church in the early 13th century.
3) Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who claimed to channel Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert St. Paul of Tarsus mentions in Acts 17:3. This false attribution to the earliest decades of Christianity resulted in his work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both East and West. According to pseudo-Dionysius, God is better characterized and approached by negations than by affirmations. All names and theological representations must be negated, then "divine silence, darkness, and unknowing" will follow. His via negativa influenced many mystics like Meister Eckhart, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Thomas Aquinas wrote an explanation for several works and cites him over 1700 times. Bonaventure called him the “prince of mystics”.
4) I must confess I had to read this sentence over and over to make sure I had not mis-translated. But there it is, and I cannot reconcile it with the fact that Bonaventure was considered the greatest medieval representative of Augustinian thought. Nor how, for instance, the view that 'love is a force of knowledge in the intellectual darkness' could possibly be 'different' from St. Augustine's.
Here is the second of three catecheses Benedict XVI devoted in 2010 to St. Bonaventure:
BENEDICT XVI
GENERAL AUDIENCE
Paul VI Audience Hall
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
As I have already said, among St Bonaventure's various merits was the ability to interpret authentically and faithfully St Francis of Assisi, whom he venerated and studied with deep love.
In a special way, in St Bonaventure's day, a trend among the Friars Minor known as the "Spirituals" held that St Francis had ushered in a totally new phase in history and that the "eternal Gospel", of which Revelation speaks, had come to replace the New Testament.
This group declared that the Church had now fulfilled her role in history. They said that she had been replaced by a charismatic community of free men guided from within by the Spirit, namely the "Spiritual Franciscans". This group's ideas were based on the writings of a Cistercian Abbot, Joachim of Fiore, who died in 1202.
In his works he affirmed a Trinitarian rhythm in history. He considered the Old Testament as the age of the Fathers, followed by the time of the Son, the time of the Church. The third age was to be awaited, that of the Holy Spirit. The whole of history was thus interpreted as a history of progress: from the severity of the Old Testament to the relative freedom of the time of the Son, in the Church, to the full freedom of the Sons of God in the period of the Holy Spirit. This, finally, was also to be the period of peace among mankind, of the reconciliation of peoples and of religions.
Joachim of Fiore had awakened the hope that the new age would stem from a new form of monasticism. Thus it is understandable that a group of Franciscans might have thought it recognized St Francis of Assisi as the initiator of the new epoch and his Order as the community of the new period the community of the Age of the Holy Spirit that left behind the hierarchical Church in order to begin the new Church of the Spirit, no longer linked to the old structures.
Hence they ran the risk of very seriously misunderstanding St Francis's message, of his humble fidelity to the Gospel and to the Church. This error entailed an erroneous vision of Christianity as a whole.
St Bonaventure, who became Minister General of the Franciscan Order in 1257, had to confront grave tension in his Order precisely because of those who supported the above-mentioned trend of the "Franciscan Spirituals" who followed Joachim of Fiore.
To respond to this group and to restore unity to the Order, St Bonaventure painstakingly studied the authentic writings of Joachim of Fiore, as well as those attributed to him and, bearing in mind the need to present the figure and message of his beloved St Francis correctly, he wanted to set down a correct view of the theology of history.
St Bonaventure actually tackled the problem in his last work, a collection of lectures for the monks of the studium in Paris. He did not complete it and it has come down to us through the transcriptions of those who heard him. It is entitled Hexaëmeron, in other words an allegorical explanation of the six days of the Creation.
The Fathers of the Church considered the six or seven days of the Creation narrative as a prophecy of the history of the world, of humanity. For them, the seven days represented seven periods of history, later also interpreted as seven millennia. With Christ we should have entered the last, that is, the sixth period of history that was to be followed by the great sabbath of God.
St Bonaventure hypothesizes this historical interpretation of the account of the days of the Creation, but in a very free and innovative way. To his mind two phenomena of his time required a new interpretation of the course of history.
The first: the figure of St Francis, the man totally united with Christ even to communion with the stigmata, almost an alter Christus, and, with St Francis, the new community he created, different from the monasticism known until then. This phenomenon called for a new interpretation, as an innovation of God which appeared at that moment.
The second: the position of Joachim of Fiore who announced a new monasticism and a totally new period of history, going beyond the revelation of the New Testament, demanded a response. As Minister General of the Franciscan Order, St Bonaventure had immediately realized that with the spiritualistic conception inspired by Joachim of Fiore, the Order would become ungovernable and logically move towards anarchy. In his opinion this had two consequences:
The first, the practical need for structures and for insertion into the reality of the hierarchical Church, of the real Church, required a theological foundation. This was partly because the others, those who followed the spiritualist concept, upheld what seemed to have a theological foundation.
The second, while taking into account the necessary realism, made it essential not to lose the newness of the figure of St Francis.
How did St Bonaventure respond to the practical and theoretical needs? Here I can only provide a very basic summary of his answer and it is in certain aspects incomplete:
1. St Bonaventure rejected the idea of the Trinitarian rhythm of history. God is one for all history, and is not tritheistic. Hence history is one, even if it is a journey and, according to St Bonaventure, a journey of progress.
2. Jesus Christ is God's last word - in him God said all, giving and expressing himself. More than himself, God cannot express or give. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. Christ himself says of the Holy Spirit: "He will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (Jn 14: 26), and "he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (Jn 16: 15). Thus there is no loftier Gospel, there is no other Church to await. Therefore the Order of St Francis too must fit into this Church, into her faith and into her hierarchical order.
3. This does not mean that the Church is stationary, fixed in the past, or that there can be no newness within her. "Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt": Christ's works do not go backwards, they do not fail but progress, the Saint said in his letter De Tribus Quaestionibus.
Thus St Bonaventure explicitly formulates the idea of progress, and this is an innovation in comparison with the Fathers of the Church and the majority of his contemporaries.
For St Bonaventure, Christ was no longer the end of history, as he was for the Fathers of the Church, but rather its center. History does not end with Christ but begins a new period.
The following is another consequence: until that moment the idea that the Fathers of the Church were the absolute summit of theology predominate -, all successive generations could only be their disciples. St Bonaventure also recognized the Fathers as teachers for ever, but the phenomenon of St Francis assured him that the riches of Christ's word are inexhaustible and that new light could also appear to the new generations. The oneness of Christ also guarantees newness and renewal in all the periods of history.
The Franciscan Order, of course, as he emphasized belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ, to the apostolic Church, and cannot be built on utopian spiritualism. Yet, at the same time, the newness of this Order in comparison with classical monasticism was vali,d and St Bonaventure as I said in my previous Catechesis defended this newness against the attacks of the secular clergy of Paris: that the Franciscans have no fixed monastery, they may go everywhere to proclaim the Gospel. It was precisely the break with stability, the characteristic of monasticism, for the sake of a new flexibility that restored to the Church her missionary dynamism.
At this point it might be useful to say that today too there are views that see the entire history of the Church in the second millennium as a gradual decline. Some see this decline as having already begun immediately after the New Testament.
In fact, "Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt": Christ's works do not go backwards but forwards. What would the Church be without the new spirituality of the Cistercians, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, the spirituality of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross and so forth?
This affirmation applies today too: "Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt", they move forward. St Bonaventure teaches us the need for overall, even strict discernment, sober realism and openness to the newness, which Christ gives his Church through the Holy Spirit.
And while this idea of decline is repeated, another idea, this "spiritualistic utopianism" is also reiterated. Indeed, we know that after the Second Vatican Council some were convinced that everything was new, that there was a different Church, that the pre-Conciliar Church was finished and that we had another, totally "other" Church, an anarchic utopianism!
And thanks be to God the wise helmsmen of the Barque of St Peter, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, on the one hand defended the newness of the Council, and on the other, defended the oneness and continuity of the Church, which is always a Church of sinners and always a place of grace.
4. In this regard, St Bonaventure, as Minister General of the Franciscans, took a line of government which showed clearly that the new Order could not, as a community, live at the same "eschatological height" as St Francis, in whom he saw the future world anticipated, but guided at the same time by healthy realism and by spiritual courage, he had to come as close as possible to the maximum realization of the Sermon on the Mount, which for St Francis was the rule, but nevertheless bearing in mind the limitations of the human being who is marked by original sin.
Thus we see that for St Bonaventure governing was not merely action but above all was thinking and praying. At the root of his government we always find prayer and thought; all his decisions are the result of reflection, of thought illumined by prayer.
His intimate contact with Christ always accompanied his work as Minister General and therefore he composed a series of theological and mystical writings that express the soul of his government. They also manifest his intention of guiding the Order inwardly, that is, of governing not only by means of commands and structures, but by guiding and illuminating souls, orienting them to Christ.
I would like to mention only one of these writings, which are the soul of his government and point out the way to follow, both for the individual and for the community: the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, [The Mind's Road to God], which is a "manual" for mystical contemplation.
This book was conceived in a deeply spiritual place: Mount La Verna, where St Francis had received the stigmata. In the introduction the author describes the circumstances that gave rise to this writing:
"While I meditated on the possible ascent of the mind to God, amongst other things there occurred that miracle which happened in the same place to the blessed Francis himself, namely the vision of the winged Seraph in the form of a Crucifix. While meditating upon this vision, I immediately saw that it offered me the ecstatic contemplation of Fr Francis himself as well as the way that leads to it" (cf. The Mind's Road to God, Prologue, 2, in Opere di San Bonaventura. Opuscoli Teologici / 1, Rome 1993, p. 499).
The six wings of the Seraph thus became the symbol of the six stages that lead man progressively from the knowledge of God, through the observation of the world and creatures and through the exploration of the soul itself with its faculties, to the satisfying union with the Trinity through Christ, in imitation of St Francis of Assisi.
The last words of St Bonaventure's Itinerarium, which respond to the question of how it is possible to reach this mystical communion with God, should be made to sink to the depths of the heart:
"If you should wish to know how these things come about, (the mystical communion with God) question grace, not instruction; desire, not intellect; the cry of prayer, not pursuit of study; the spouse, not the teacher; God, not man; darkness, not clarity; not light, but the fire that inflames all and transports to God with fullest unction and burning affection.... Let us then... pass over into darkness; let us impose silence on cares, concupiscence, and phantasms; let us pass over with the Crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that when the Father is shown to us we may say with Philip, "It is enough for me'" (cf. ibid., VII 6).
Dear friends, let us accept the invitation addressed to us by St Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, and learn at the school of the divine Teacher: Let us listen to His word of life and truth that resonates in the depths of our soul. Let us purify our thoughts and actions so that He may dwell within us and that we may understand His divine voice which draws us towards true happiness.
When one puts together Benedict XVI's statement in his Oct. 31, 2017 letter to the organizer of the St. Bonaventure symposium about 'how much St. Bonaventure has to say to us at this particular historical moment" [I found it significant that the Vatican Radio reporter chose to open his report with that line, which was the only line he quoted from the letter] and the citations the Holy Father made in the above catecheses on how St. Bonaventure governs - not to mention how he describes the anarchic utopianism indulged in by Vatican-II prpogressivists - and we apply all that to 'this particular historical moment', then we have a full-bodied critique of the leadership in the Church today.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/11/2017 01:46] |