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This is my 4th and final post in this series on Saint Bonaventure's "The Journey of the Mind to God."
While reading Bonaventure’s book, the Holy Spirit had me revisit a book I had read about a year ago, "St. Francis and the Cross: Reflections on Suffering, Weakness, and Joy." This book was born of a 3 day retreat for Franciscan priests held at Mt Alverno. The book ends with a meditation by Marco Bove that I wish to share along with some reflections of mine that will be in (parenthesis):
Francis basically remained a poor man, a man who lived by faith and who gave his life totally to God. Such a man does not make calculated plans and does not seek security in what he has, who he is, or what he knows. The Father is the source for everything, and the poor man places his trust completely in God. (He abides in the Other – reflecting his true subject being made in the image and likeness [Gen 1:26] – Love.)
One does not maintain such an inner attitude without a struggle and without intense suffering. When Francis arrived at Mt Alverno, he was full of many doubts: about himself, the trail he was blazing, the order he had founded, the choices he had made, the future, and his responsibility in regards to all this. (He is seeking the approval of others – he is experiencing humanity’s fallen nature – reflecting the restless subject.)
Like Jesus, Francis also sought the Father's will. Gradually God led him to the total gift of himself, to the experience of the cross: "My Father,... not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Mt 26:39). Herein lies the meaning of the stigmata. It is the external manifestation of something that occurred in the heart, so as to enable Francis to say with St Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). (Here we insert Bonaventure's contention that true reason must abide in prayer so as to accept the cross [out of love] and thus over-coming restless reason which always gets stuck in an endless loop leading humanity back to the cross - love over restlessness.)
The inner struggle leading up to total surrender often assumes a form of resistance in the life of the believer. In opposition to the weakness and the foolishness of the cross are the wisdom and power of the world, which are rooted in a quest for clarity and efficiency based on expediency. But Jesus' cross is not based on any human criteria, and even less on any criteria related to expediency, efficiency, or effectiveness, because God's strength and wisdom are revealed through Jesus' cross. (His throwing off the myth of power allows God to strip him of the restless subject, that which seeks the approval of others, thus becoming a new life – an authentic image and likeness of his true Subject – participating in a reciprocity of love in praise and gratitude.)St Bonaventure, a Doctor of The Church, was a great scholar and leader. He was dedicated to the art of reason and made great efforts to reconcile reason with revelation. In "The Journey of the Mind to God" St Bonaventure expressed what he came to know through his meditation on "crucified" Francis, which was that reason, centered in the heart, grounded in faith, can make intelligible Christian conversion, though in and of itself, reason does not necessarily lead to conversion.
In chapter 7 he beckons us to enter into the mystery of the stigmata - giving no heed to ourselves, as if we humans were substantial or sufficient beings in and of ourselves, rather he challenges us to embrace our poverty giving all...
"to the Gift of God, that is to the Holy Spirit. Little or nothing should be attributed to the creature, but everything to the Creative Essence - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And thus, with Dionysius, we address the Triune God: 'O Trinity, Essence above all essence, and Deity above all deity, supremely best Guardian of the divine wisdom of Christians, direct us to the supremely unknown, super-luminous, and most sublime height of mystical knowledge. There new mysteries - absolute and changeless mysteries of theology - are shrouded in the super-luminous darkness of a silence, teaching secretly in the utmost obscurity that is manifest above all manifestation; of a darkness that is resplendent above all splendor, and in which everything shines forth, of a darkness which fills invisible intellects full above all plenitude with the splendors of invisible good things that are above all good.'A good teacher on Bonaventure is Pope Benedict XVI. He writes in, Great Teachers that Bonaventure once explained his decision to become Franciscan:
"So much let us say to God. To the friend, however, for whom these words were written, we can say with Dionysius: 'And you, my friend, in this matter of mystical visions, redouble your efforts, abandon the senses, intellectual activities, visible and invisible things - everything that is not and that is - and, oblivious of yourself, let yourself be brought back, in so far as it is possible, to unity with Him Who is above all essence and all knowledge. And transcending yourself and all things, ascend to the super-essential gleam of the divine darkness by an incommensurable and absolute transport of a pure mind.'"
"I must confess before God that the reason which made me love the life of blessed Francis most is that it resembled the birth and early development of the Church. The Church began with simple fishermen, and was subsequently enriched by very distinguished and wise teachers; the religion of Blessed Francis was not established by the prudence of men but by Christ."Benedict went on to quote Bonaventure painting an image of Francis in these words:
"a man who sought Christ passionately. In the love that impelled Francis to imitate Christ, he was entirely conformed to Christ."and as he goes on in the book to quote and describe how Bonaventure engaged the argument between reason and theology:
"...real theology, the rational work of the true and good theology has another origin, not the pride of reason. One who loves wants to know his beloved better and better; true theology does not involve reason and its research prompted by pride, [but is] motivated by love of the One who gave his consent" and wants to be better acquainted with the beloved: this is the fundamental intention of theology. Thus in the end, for Saint Bonaventure, the primacy of love is crucial... for St Bonaventure the ultimate destiny of the human being is to love God, to encounter him and to be united in his and our love. For him this is the most satisfactory definition of our happiness.
Today we can look back and see the trajectory of Bonaventure’s reflections - from the Crucified and Risen Christ to Francis and into the future where Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) a French theologian, wrote in "The Discovery of God":
"(There is) no real knowledge without mystery. And no man without God."
From the ending of "St. Francis and the Cross: Reflections on Suffering, Weakness, and Joy" Marco Bove suggests how Francis came to reflect this new life in Christ. Leaving Mt Alverno, after receiving the stigmata, Francis went straight to Umbria and the Marches on a long preaching tour. His biographers say that he was deeply inspired and very enthusiastic. The composing of the “Canticle of Creatures” followed and in it Francis highlights the key to a journey of faith: praise and gratitude. Bove commented that in the "Canticle” Francis expresses a new way of being in Christ which is:
“to stand before the Father and to face life itself. Praise bursts forth from the heart of a man who lives by grace and by grace alone, from the heart of a man who can only express gratitude through his life and through his words.”So from the Crucified and Risen Christ to Francis receiving the stigmata – a place where reason is conquered by revelation – we touch on what it means to be human. It boils down to a question of desire* or will to be a subject – and our freedom to choose how to fulfill that desire.
Christian conversion, represented by Francis, is a true transformation of that desire – it is discovering the model whose relationship to the true God is such that in following That Model one enters into a life in which prayer and transcendence is central - where the Real Other in one’s life is God and this is radically different from a life where that is not the case.
One gets a sense that through his intense contemplation on Francis receiving the stigmata, Bonaventure saw that reason, left to itself, leads to the Cross, which illuminates our darkness, our violence. And thus we find Bonaventure, throughout the book, using reason as he talks about faith, but in the end he insists that reason must have a prior source of grounding – reason must be conquered by revelation - as he was keenly aware of the limitation of philosophy; that reason only exists as long as there are differences. Once left outside the love of God, we humans rubbing up against each other long enough, will unravel, much like the fractions within the Franciscan order that Bonaventure was dealing with; just like what Francis was struggling with prior to his visit to Mt Alverno. In time, this unraveling of reason will result in both, a crisis of culture as well as a crisis of the individual, thus destroying all differences – throwing everyone into sameness – a frenzied mob expelling reason - where the only source of truth now comes from The Voice on the cross: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
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We find throughout Bonaventure’s book insights, like a flicker, a glimmer of something more, a precursor if you will, for which no expression had yet been found and which we are only now beginning to grapple with, and that is how the self – what it means to be a person – is bound up in a Trinitarian and anthropological troth.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, "that all may be one. . . as we are one" (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God's sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. – Gaudium et spes, 24And so Bonaventure closes out his book countering the "false-self" of reason, which was perfectly exemplified by Pilate's empty philosophical question, "What is truth?" with a clear and realistic expression of Franciscan spirituality – living for the Something Greater. I invite you to the cave of Francis and ask you to engage in a Franciscan form of centering prayer - one that is not so much an "inner" journey, as if to locate the essence of yourself within, but rather one in love modelled on Francis imitating Christ, as he was entirely conformed to Christ.
If you should ask how these things come about,
question grace, not instruction;
desire, not intellect;
the cry of prayer, not pursuit of study;
the Bridegroom, not the teacher;
God, not man;
darkness, not clarity;
not light, but the wholly fire
which inflames and carries you aloft to God
with fullest unction and burning affection.
This fire is God,
and the furnace of this fire leads to Jerusalem;
and Christ the man kindles it
in the fervor of His burning Passion,
which he alone truly perceives who says,
"My soul chooses hanging and my bones death" [Job, 7, 15].
He who chooses this death can see God because this is indubitably true:
"Man shall not see me and live" [Exod., 33, 20].
Let us then die and pass over into darkness;
let us impose silence
upon our cares, our desires, and our phantasms (imaginings).
Let us pass over with the crucified Christ
from this world to the Father [John, 13, 1],
so that when the Father is shown to us
we may say with Philip:
"It is enough for us" [John, 14, 8];
let us hear with Paul:
"My grace is sufficient for thee" [II Cor., 12, 9];
let us exult with David, saying:
"My flesh and my heart have grown faint; Thou art the God of my heart, and portion forever" [Ps. 73, 26].
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting; and let all the people say:
So be it, so be it! Amen! Hallelujah!" [Ps., 106, 48].
(*Desire not from a psychological or what we usual think of as 'individual craving', but rather an anthropological understanding based on "all desire is a desire to be," it is an aspiration, the dream of a fullness attributed to the mediator.)
