Seeing God in the World: The Symbolic Spirituality of St. Francis
As Seen in St. Bonaventure's Writings
by Clara Stuart

St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast is celebrated on October 4th, is one of the most popular saints yet, at the same time one of the least understood. In recent decades, many have found in him a worshiper of nature and a rebel against authority; it was not for nothing, they say, that Francis became the unofficial patron saint of hippies. To judge from the way he is appropriated to sell various causes, one gets the impression that the Francis who preached to the birds is really a forerunner of Greenpeace, and the Francis who practiced radical poverty is a herald of "Christian communism." How often have the blue jeans and guitars of modern-day church retreats, or the ceramic dishes and polyester vestments of contemporary liturgy, been justified by a vague and sentimental reference to the "simple man from Assisi"? Is this really A closer consideration of his life presents a very different picture of a man profoundly devoted to Christ in his every word and deed, blessed with rich insights into God's creation, passionately in love with the Blessed Sacrament and the Virgin Mary, animated by an unwearying zeal for the salvation of souls and the conversion of unbelievers: in short, one of the greatest sons of the Catholic Church. If we wish to understand what Francis of Assisi truly stood for, if we wish to draw fruits from his life and spirituality to apply to our own, we shall find our guide in St. Bonaventure, the third Minister General of the Franciscan Order, who faithfully perpetuated the example Francis had inspired. For Bonaventure is not merely the author of two lives of St. Francis which beautifully display the truly Catholic qualities of the holy man; he is an extraordinary saint and preacher in his own right, revered by the Church as one of her greatest thinkers. The story is told that when St. Thomas Aquinas entered Bonaventure's study in Paris and caught him busy at work on a life of Francis, he withdrew and said to his companions: "Let us leave the saint to write about the saint." It is precisely because he takes Francis as the model for his theology that Bonaventure is our best guide to the deeper meaning of the Franciscan life of radical commitment to the Gospel. Before we look directly at Francis, therefore, it will be worth our while to spend time grappling with some central themes of St. Bonaventure's theology, since a fair grasp of it will shed much light on Francis' extraordinary gifts and may help us to follow his example in our own prayer and work.

The Symbolic Nature of Creation

St. Bonaventure's philosophy is notable for its eloquent elaboration of the symbolic nature of creation. For him, as for St. Francis, God is not merely enthroned in heaven, He is present and active everywhere in the world Ñ if one knows how to look for Him. Bonaventure often compares the world to a book or a poem written by God. That is to say, the world not only is, but means.1 In continuity with the Greek Fathers, he sees the world as an ikon, the beauty of which leads us to contemplation of the Beautiful itself. In other words, the world can be seen as a natural sacrament, a visible sign conveying spiritual content. For St. Bonaventure and St. Francis, the ultimate structure of reality is not so much ontic (a matter of being) as it is semiotic (a matter of signifying), or rather, things only are because they signify God.

All creatures, whether they are viewed in terms of their defects or in terms of their perfectibility, in voices most loud and strong, cry out the existence of God whom they need because of their deficiency and from whom they receive their completion. Therefore, in accordance with the greater or lesser degree of fullness which they possess, some cry out the existence of God with a loud voice; others cry out yet louder; while still others make the loudest cry.2

The vision of the world as sign of God, signum Dei, stands at the heart of Bonaventure's entire philosophy. Etienne Gilson points out: "It would not be enough to say of this conception that St. Bonaventure does not consider it a game or a poetic dream; we may affirm without fear of error that it is for him the only perspective in which the created universe ceases to be an unintelligible confusion and becomes accessible to reason."3 A question might then be raised: how is this apparently fanciful view compatible with a rational or scientific account of the world? In answer, we must note that Bonaventure does not have, and in fact opposes, a purely "rational account" of the world, if what is meant is the employment of reason to the exclusion of every other kind of knowledge Ñ in later terms, rationalism. What is above the mind is not irrational, it is super-rational; the source of truth is infinitely higher than the human mind. Consequently, in order to understand the world it is not enough to make observations and measurements, as though truth were exclusively a function of things; for if the world is made to point beyond itself, then to understand it we must know something of that to which it is pointing. In short, to see the world as it really is Ñ an ikon of God Ñ requires the help of its Artisan, the insight of its Author. St. Bonaventure exhorts us to pray, and himself prays twice at the beginning of his magnificent treatise, The Soul's Journey into God.

By so praying, we are given light to discern the steps of the soul's ascent to God. For we are so created that the material universe itself is a ladder by which we may ascend to God. And among things some are vestiges, others, images; some corporeal, others, spiritual; some temporal, others, everlasting; some things are outside us and some within.4

So full is the world of signs proclaiming the existence and goodness of God, that "whoever is not enlightened by such great splendor in created things is blind; whoever remains unheedful of such great outcries is deaf; whoever does not praise God in all these effects is dumb; whoever does not turn to the First Principle after so many signs is a fool."5

Bonaventure sees order in the profusion of things around us. In his more systematic works, he identifies three distinct kinds of symbols, or three levels of symbolism found in creation, differing according to how clearly a given creature signifies God. The first is the vestigium, or footprint, of God. Everything in creation is a vestigium, but from man's perspective, vestigia are known as those things which are corporeal, belonging to the temporal order, and outside of him. The second, imago Dei or image of God, is found in the human soul and in the angel, which are spiritual and everlasting creatures. The third kind of symbol is the similitudo, the exact likeness; this is the soul that has been reformed according to the order of grace.6

Footprints and the Divine Ideas

"Now since it is necessary to ascend before we can descend on Jacob's ladder, let us place our first step in the ascent at the bottom, setting the whole visible world before us as a mirror through which we may pass over to God, the Supreme Creative Artist."7 The first place where man finds God is through His footprints in the natural world. Every creature is a vestigium manifesting God as Creator, as the supreme artist who has made a supremely beautiful work of art. The metaphysical explanation is found in St. Bonaventure's doctrine of the Divine Ideas. Being pure and perfect act, God knows Himself perfectly. This knowledge is a perfect image of Himself and, because perfectly produced, is consubstantial with Him, and can be called the Word of God. "In a true and proper sense, God is Word. But a word is the likeness of that which is spoken. Therefore, if the Son of God is the Word in whom all things are spoken, it is necessary that the likenesses of all things that are expressed be present in that Word."8 Through the Word, God not only knows Himself but also the likenesses of creatures which are all the ways in which He can be participated. These ideas, contained in the Word, serve as exemplars, i.e., models, for creatures when God wills to bring them into being.

Of course, there are crucial differences between God's knowledge and man's. Whereas things in the world are the cause of our knowledge, God's knowledge is the cause of these things. Our minds passively receive a likeness from an object, whereas the idea of it in God's mind actively makes that object to exist.9 God's knowledge, not distinct from His being, is causative of the actual creature which reflects some aspect of Him.10 In other words, every single creature is created as a likeness of God, patterned after some perfection of God and striving in its very substance to be like Him. However, despite this great dignity and fundamental goodness, God is never fully seen in any or even the totality of His creatures Ñ the limited cannot fully express the unlimited, the composite utter simplicity, the finite the infinite. Consequently, Bonaventure states that God's idea "expresses the creature more perfectly than the created being itself can."11 This exemplar causality is the direct cause of the symbolic nature of the world as an artistic expression of the Creator.12 To be a sign of God is the heart of every creature, the Ôessence' of its essence, the most intimate and most important quality of all Ñ it is the ultimate meaning of the world in every detail and as a whole. Hence, we can understand why St. Bonaventure says: "No one can have understanding (scientia) unless he considers where things come from, how they are led back to their end, and how God shines forth in them."13

The Proper Use of the World

This universal statement about the inmost being of things applies also to the human soul which, with the angels, constitutes the second order of symbols. In order to recognize in ourselves the image of God, St. Bonaventure, following the instructions of St. Augustine, tells us that we must leave the sensible world and turn inward to examine our own souls.

Enter into yourself, therefore, and observe that your soul loves itself most fervently; that it could not love itself unless it knew itself, nor could know itself unless it summoned itself to conscious memory, for we do not grasp a thing with our understanding unless it is present in our memory. Hence you can observe, not with the bodily eye, but with the eye of the mind, that your soul has three powers. Consider therefore, the activities of these three powers and their relationships and you will be able to see God through yourself as through an image.14

The soul has three chief powers which are involved in its acts of knowing and loving. Memory holds within itself an awareness of time and the first principles of our knowledge, which are requisite for any act of intellection. Our intelligence grasps meanings and conclusions and understands the nature of being. The will is the principle of choice, judgment, and love.15

If one considers the order, the origin, and the relationship of these faculties to one another, he is led up to the most blessed Trinity itself. For from memory comes forth the intelligence as its offspring, because we understand only when the likeness which is in the memory emerges at the crest of our understanding and this is the mental word. From the memory and intelligence is breathed forth love, as the bond of both. These three Ñ the generating mind, the word, and love exist in the soul as memory, intelligence and will, which are consubstantial, co-equal and contemporary, and interpenetrating.16

From the nature of the soul we realize that God is the goal or final cause of rational creatures, who by the power of intellect and will can embrace Him through knowledge and love. As Truth, He is the ultimate object of knowledge, and as Goodness, the highest object of desire.17

God as the final end of man, his summum bonum, explains the why of the world as sign. Man, as primarily a sensitive and discursive creature, is constituted such that he can only find his way to God through other creatures, at least to begin with.

It must be said that as the cause shines forth in the effect, and as the wisdom of the artificer is manifested in his work, so God, who is the artificer and cause of the creature, is known through it. And the reason for this is double, one is because of agreement, the other because of need: because of agreement, for every creature leads to God more than to anything else; because of need, for, since God as the supremely spiritual light could not be known in his spirituality by the [human] understanding, which is almost material, the soul needs to know him through the creature.18

Man must go to God through creatures because God is infinitely superior in nature and because man's natural mode of knowledge requires his senses. The material world thus serves as the first step in the ascent. However, there is a wrong way to gaze at the natural world. Bonaventure warns that we must not to stop at and rest contentedly at the first level of signs, but continue to climb up the ladder.

Distracted by many cares, the human mind does not enter into itself through memory; beclouded by sense images, it does not come back to itself through intelligence; and drawn away by the concupiscences, it does not return to itself through the desire for interior sweetness and spiritual joy. Therefore, completely immersed in things of sense, the soul cannot re-enter in itself as the image of God.19

Since things are signs in their very being, to focus on them as ends in themselves would be to frustrate their nature and corrupt man's powers by drawing them away from their proper purpose. The most fitting use man can make of the world and its many goods is to transcend them by seeking God within and beyond every state and activity. One instance of this would be sacramental marriage, which is meant to be a natural gateway into divine love and a means of drawing ever closer to God.

After turning inward to contemplate the image of God in the soul, we see that our First Principle is also our final good, the beatitude in which we long to rest. Yet a survey of our interior powers reveals something besides their eminence: it shows their tremendous limitations as well. On its own the creature cannot mount high enough on the ladder to reach and embrace the ultimate Good, who, though intimately present in all steps of the ascent, is still infinitely far away. The question then becomes, how is it possible that this Good be obtained? Bonaventure offers only one solution: "If you wish to know how these things may come about, ask grace, not learning; desire, not the understanding; the groaning of prayer, not diligence in reading; the Bridegroom, not the teacher."20 Only through the power of a loving God can man hope to reach his true Beloved. The one mediator between God and man is Jesus Christ, who is the Way to the Father.

Union with God by Grace

The grace God bestows on the receptive soul leads to the third level of symbols. By receiving the gratia Christi, the image of God in the soul becomes a similitude, i.e., an exact likeness, of Christ. In a play on words, Bonaventure says that the soul is "de-formed" because of the Fall, but is rendered "Dei-formed" by grace, made like to God by participation in His life.21
Thus it is that, no matter how enlightened one may be by the light coming from nature and from acquired knowledge, he cannot enter into himself to delight in the Lord except through the mediation of Christ, Who says, "I am the door. If anyone enter by me he shall be safe, and shall go in and out, and shall find pastures." But we do not come to this door unless we believe in Him, hope in Him and love Him.22

Through the acquisition of the theological virtues and the life of faith, the soul can be purified and made perfect. When one begins to understand and practice the mysteries of faith, he is healed of the wound made by the first Adam. Through the sacrifice of the Second Adam, man may become an adopted son of God, conformed to the incarnate image of the Father.

To perceive and experience a situation as sacred, as the intersection of the infinite and the finite, as fully symbol, requires that one become himself a symbol; a locus where the sacred flows into the profane. And this transformation is achieved according to the evangelical pattern. It is the imitation of the virtues, prayer life, etc., of Christ that transforms one into a Christian symbol.23

What does it mean to become an image of Christ? Metaphysically, this is a receptivity to God's power, allowing it to act in the soul. It is the fiat which signifies the willingness to take up one's cross, to conform one's own will to the will of God. In this way the soul becomes a manifestation of the divine, a temple of God's presence. When the soul has been thus purified, the mind is able to recognize God as pure Being and Unity, and through the virtue of faith, to love Him as absolute Good.24

But there is one more stage of the journey:

After our mind has beheld God outside itself through and in vestiges of Him, within itself and through His image, and above itself through the divine similitudes shining upon us, and in the divine Light itself insofar as it is possible in our state as wayfarer and by the exercise of our minds, and when at length the mind has reached . . . the first and highest Principle and in the Mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, things the like of which cannot possibly be found among creatures, and which transcend all acuteness of the human intellect Ñ when the mind has done all this, it must still, in beholding these things, transcend and pass over, not only this visible world but even itself. In this passing over, Christ is the way and the door. . .25

In the last stage, the exertions of the intellect and the speculations of theology are set aside; it is necessary to travel on roads without signs. Just as man must go beyond the natural world, so he must also transcend himself in order to embrace God, surrender himself to receive the full love of the one who gave His life on the Cross. This union is the true peace of Christ, the ultimate consolation of the viator, a glimpse of that which "eye hath not seen" and a whisper of that which "ear hath not heard." While still in a state of pilgrimage, the wayfaring soul may be given the privilege of contemplating God not only through the creature, but to some extent in the creature, a vision which belongs properly to the blessed. To see the Creator through the creature is to use it as a ladder, and in the ascent the creature must be left behind. To know God in the creature is to see the presence and influence of God in it, so that one sees both simultaneously.26

St. Francis as Paradigm of the Christian Life

In order to explain how the vision of God in creatures can be achieved by wayfarers, Bonaventure turns to St. Francis of Assisi as an example of one who had received this favor, which was originally meant to belong to all mankind. Because St. Francis had regained a large measure of the purity of the state of Adam's original innocence, he was able to perceive God not only through, but also in, each creature. As a result, Francis could see more deeply into the nature of the world and the meaning of creation than many a theologian. As St. Bonaventure observes: "For his genius pure from all stain penetrated into the hidden places of the mysteries, and, where the learning of a theologian tarried without, the feelings of the lover led him in."27 Bonaventure saw St. Francis, who was without scholarly training, as a real metaphysician, while he regarded many of his university colleagues, learned though they were in the treatises of Aristotle, as traitors to Christian wisdom. "This is our entire metaphysics," he explains: "emanation, exemplarity, and fulfillment: to be illumined by spiritual rays and to be led back to the highest reality. And thus you will be a true metaphysician."28

One of the most characteristic features of St. Francis' life, and one which is most commonly misunderstood, was his special tenderness for the natural world.

Man in his original state had a natural inclination to love animals and even irrational creatures. Therefore, the greater the progress a man makes and the nearer he approaches to the state of innocence the more docile these creatures become towards him, and the greater the affection he feels for them. We see this in the case St. Francis; he overflowed with tender compassion even for animals, because to some extent he had returned to the state of innocence. This was made clear by the way irrational creatures obeyed him.29

As Fr. Ronald Knox noted, "Do not, by the way, ever let anybody try to make you believe that St. Francis was fond of animals; he was fond of creatures. Anybody can be fond of animals because they remind him of human beings. . . [Francis] loved creatures, not because they reminded him of human beings, but because they reminded him of God."30 The real secret of his affection for the world was his ability to view creatures from a spiritual and eternal perspective, in relation to the Almighty Creator, their ultimate Source and End. "When he bethought himself of the first beginning of all things, he was filled with a yet more overflowing charity, and would call the dumb animals, howsoever small, by the names of brother and sister, forasmuch as he recognized in them the same origin as in himself."31 Francis' knowledge of the origin of all things in God was the root of his awareness of the dignity, as well as the humility, of every creature. With this understanding of the true nature of creatures, Francis could truly say that the birds were singing praises to God, and see in every star or tree the reality that heaven and earth are full of the glory of God.

Because of this insight, Francis made a fitting use of creatures, including those which are not so easy to see as symbols of divine love. "Of Francis it was said, "He was hemmed in with agonizing pain, but he called his trials his sisters, not his pains.' By 'addressing' his pain, by relating to it in a fully personal way, he opened it to the Person who addressed him through it."32 Not only joys, but even trials and sufferings Francis understood in relation to God. "For of a truth it is this piety which, allying all creatures unto itself, is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come."33 Francis saw the end of all his journeying Ñ and so thought no more of his labors than Jacob, who labored seven years for Rachel and counted it as seven days.

Similarly, Bonaventure notes that for St. Francis, just as for all men, this spiritual stamina and insight is obtainable only by a life of holiness and the grace of God.34

Fire lost its burn, and water its taste, at his command; a rock produced water in abundance and inanimate creatures waited upon him; savage animals became tame and brute beasts listened to him eagerly. God Himself, the Lord of all, bowed to his wish in his goodness; He supplied him generously with food and guided his steps with His light. Francis was a man of indescribable holiness and so all creation was subject to him, and the Creator of all condescended to him.35

Consider how wondrous was the purity of this man, how great his merits, that at his beck, fire should temper its heat, water should change its flavour, angelic music should afford him solace. . .thus it was evident that the whole frame of the world was obedient unto the consecrated senses of the holy man.36

When the senses are purified and consecrated to God, the world and its beauties cease to be a snare or temptation, becomes instead a cause for praising God all the more. Indeed, when compared with their divine exemplar and perceived as signs of God, they should make one long all the more for their perfect and most lovable Creator. In the lyrical words of Philotheus Boehner:

Thus the exceedingly tender love of St. Francis for all creatures did not make him forget that he was a pilgrim and a stranger. On the contrary, all creatures were transformed in his immediate experience to signposts, to remembrance and admonitions Ñ in a word, to souvenirs. Each of them recalled to his mind and heart something of his heavenly Father. Just as a souvenir is dear to the heart, since it is a sweet token of love and reminds us of one beloved, and yet, at the same time, fills the heart with sadness and longing, since it is a token of one beloved who is so far away, so creatures, the souvenirs of the good Father in heaven, caused at one and the same time in Francis' heart both joy and woe. Saint Francis could rejoice in creatures; he could sing with his brothers and sisters in the Lord. But with his joy mingled easily tears of longing and desire for his real home, of which creatures were only souvenirs.37

Poverty and Wealth

Francis' rule of poverty can be seen as the Evangelical corollary of what is, in essence, the proper use of creatures: not mistaking the image for the Original, not adhering to things in such a way that the soul's journey to God would be hindered. To attempt to find or locate one's happiness in things is the very definition of idolatry, since God alone is our true happiness. Just as the man who found the pearl of great price sold all he had to obtain it, so man, if he wishes to possess God, must give up his attachment to the world. Poverty is detachment, not claiming anything as absolutely one's own; it is a recognition that everything finally belongs Ñ and should be consecrated Ñ to God. Accordingly, one may then receive the riches of creation as a gift: "Naught in the whole creation will refuse its service unto those who have left all for the sake of the Creator of all."38 Quoting St. Peter (I Pet. 5:6), "Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him," St. Francis exhorted his followers: "Keep nothing of yourselves, so that He who has given Himself wholly to you may receive you wholly."39 St. Francis, the poor man who had no place to lay his head, knew like St. Augustine that his heart was meant to rest only in God.

In the same vein, St. Bonaventure speaks of the condescension of God toward Francis, in deigning to grant his requests and supplying his every need.40 If we could see with unclouded eyes as Francis did, it would become unmistakably clear that such divine self-sacrifice (to speak recklessly) is in fact happening always and everywhere throughout the whole of creation, in which God condescends to make imitations of Himself which mirror His infinite beauty and perfection, and even more poignantly, in the fulfillment that surpasses all creation, the Incarnation. It is for this reason that St. Francis speaks with such rapture of God's ultimate condescension, the Sacrament of the Altar: "What wonderful majesty! What stupendous condescension! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! That the Lord of the whole universe, God and the Son of God, should humble himself like this and hide under the form of a little bread, for our salvation."41

In keeping with his vision of God's universal blessing and presence in creation, St. Francis also saw in the soul the imago Dei. One sign of this recognition was his habit of seeking out lonely spots in order to pray and contemplate, entering into himself in order that he might hear the Word of God more distinctly in interior silence and see the image of God in the workings of his soul.42 The essence of the return to oneself is this holy solitude and fasting from the cares and goods of the world.

Charity and Chastity

"Although Francis devoted himself frequently to prayer and contemplation in hermitages, he knew that imitation of Christ demanded that he serve men."43 Just as God's goodness is diffusive of itself, so a true image of that goodness and love will pour itself out for others. Even in his solitude, Francis knew that his love of God called him to love men, teaching by his example and preaching repentance.

Now this exceeding devotion of love uplifted him into the divine in such wise as that his loving goodwill extended unto those that had received with him a like nature and grace. For it is no wonder if he, whose affectionate heart had made him kin unto all created things, was by the love of Christ drawn into yet closer kinship with such as were sealed with the likeness of their Creator, and redeemed by the Blood of their Maker.44

Just as Francis found God in the natural world, so he also found God among his human brothers and sisters, both as images and as re-created similitudes of God. It was equally his love of God and his love of men that made him call others to Christ, for he wished to see the face of his Beloved in every face and he longed for every soul to know the same joy of love.
In all these things, Bonaventure sees in Francis' life the pattern for our pilgrimage to God. As he writes in the Legenda maior:

That he might by all things be stirred up unto the divine love, he triumphed in all the works of the Lord's hands, and through the sight of their joy was uplifted unto their life-giving cause and origin. He beheld in fair things Him Who is the most fair, and through the traces of Himself that He hath imprinted on His creatures, he everywhere followed on to reach the Beloved, making of all things a ladder for himself whereby he might ascend to lay hold on Him Who is the altogether lovely. For by the impulse of his unexampled devotion he tasted the fountain of goodness that streamed forth, as in rivulets, in every created thing, and he perceived as it were an heavenly harmony in the concord of the virtues and actions granted unto them by God, and did sweetly exhort them to praise the Lord, even as the prophet David had done.45

Hence the culmination of the journey, too, is best exemplified by the life of Francis. Bonaventure calls the world a book written by God for man's instruction; for St. Francis it is a love letter. Through the continual contemplation of this immutable and wondrously varied message, the same love inflames the lover's heart, and the Beloved's image is imprinted on the soul of the lover. As Bonaventure observes, "the true love of Christ had transformed His lover into the same image."46 Emulating Christ, he also gave all for his Beloved in a veritable martyrdom of charity:

The poor man of Christ had naught save two mites, his body and soul, that he could give away in his large-hearted charity. But these, for the love of Christ, he offered up so continuously as that at all seasons, through the rigour of his fasting, he made an offering of his body, and through the fervour of his yearnings, of his spirit, sacrificing in the outer court a whole burnt-offering, and within, in the Temple, burning sweet incense.47

This burning charity was the source of Francis' chastity. True chastity is loving with all one's heart, mind and strength. It is the love which is "strong as death and whose flashes are flashes of fire, the flame of the Eternal" (Cant. 8:6-7). "He who is not spiritual in his flesh becomes carnal even in his spirit," says St. Augustine. St. Francis proves that the converse is true as well: he who is not carnal in his spirit becomes spiritual even in his flesh.

It was set before his eyes that, as Christ's lover, he might know he was to be transformed into the express likeness of Christ Jesus crucified, not by physical martyrdom, but by the fervour of his whole spirit. As the vision disappeared, after they had conversed mysteriously in great intimacy, it left his heart ablaze with seraphic eagerness and marked his body with the visible likeness of the Crucified. It was as if the fire of love had penetrated his whole being, so that the likeness of Christ might be impressed upon it like a seal.48

Thus, Francis who had recognized God in all creatures, and exemplified Christ in his life, became himself a supreme example of the symbol: he was given the vision of the likeness of the Crucified in the Seraph and received the image of his Beloved not only in his spirit, but also in his flesh. Through the sacred stigmata, Francis himself became, in yet another manner, a sign of Christ visible to the whole world.49 "With Christ I am nailed to the Cross. I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). And as Christ Himself, the expressive image and Word of the Father, is God become Man, so St. Francis remains a timeless sign of man become like to God. Such divine illumination and union was all that St. Francis had ever sought. It was the same longing for the Bridegroom, the same desire for union with God, that set the man from Assisi aflame and goaded St. Bonaventure in all his work. "This then must be the fruit of all the sciences," Bonaventure says, "that through them faith is strengthened, God is honored, morals are well-ordered, and those pleasures are experienced which result from the union of the Bridegroom with His bride."50

Clara Stuart is a student of medieval philosophy and writes from Washington, D.C.

Notes

1. David E. Ost, "Bonaventure: the Aesthetic Synthesis," Franciscan Studies 36 (1976), p. 233.
2. Qu¾stiones disputat¾ de mysterio Trinitatis, trans. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. (New York: The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University, 1979), Q. 1, art. 1, corp.
3. Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure, trans. Dom Illtyd Trethowan and Frank J. Sheed (Paterson: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1965), p. 194.
4. Itinerarium mentis in Deum, trans. with commentary by Philotheus Boehner, O.F.M. (New York: The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University, 1990), I.2.
5. Itinerarium I.15.
. See Itinerarium I.2 and IV.2; In I Sent. d. 3, Q. 2.
7. Itinerarium I.9.
8. De scientia Christi, trans. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M., (New York: The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University, 1992), Q. 2, arg. aff. 10.
9. De scientia Christi Q. 2, corp.: "But that knowledge which causes things to be requires an exemplary likeness. Such a likeness does not come from the outside. Hence, it implies neither composition nor imperfection. But the divine intellect is the supreme light, the full truth and pure act. So, as the divine power to produce things is sufficient in itself to produce everything, so the divine light and truth is sufficient in itself to express all things."
10. Compare In I Sent. d. 35, QQ. 1-4. See also De Scientia Christi Q. 2, corp. and ad 2: "That sort of likeness by which one being is said to be the exemplar of another is posited in the Creator with respect to creation. Such a likeness does not require that the two beings agree by participation in a common third. It is sufficient that there be a harmony of order whereby they are related as cause and effect, or as expressive principle and object expressed."
11. De scientia Christi Q. 2, ad 9.
12. Bonaventure's emphasis on God's Word as expressive of things is the origin of his doctrine of creation as signum Dei. See Gilson, op. cit, pp. 144-147 for a more complete discussion of this unique characteristic of St. Bonaventure's doctrine of divine ideas.
13. Collationes in Hexaemeron, trans. Jose de Vinck (Paterson: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1970), III.2, p. 42.
14. Itinerarium III.1.
15. See Itinerarium III.2; III.3. For a complete discussion of illumination, see De scientia Christi Q. 4.
16. Itinerarium II.5.
17. In I Sent. d. 3, pt. 1, Q. 2, ad 5.
18. In I Sent. d. 3, pt. 1, Q. 2, corp.
19. Itinerarium IV.1.
20. Itinerarium VII.6.
21. De scientia Christi Q. 4, concl.
22. Itinerarium IV.1.
23. Donald P. St. John, "The Symbolic Spirituality of St. Francis," Franciscan Studies 39 (1979), p. 196.
24. See Itinerarium V and VI.
25. Itinerarium VII.1.
26. In I Sent. d. 3, pt. 1, Q. 3 corp.: "To know God in the creature is to know his presence and influence in the creature. And this is proper half-fully to wayfarers, but perfectly to those who comprehend [in heaven]. . .To know God through the creature, however, is to be elevated from knowledge of the creature to knowledge of God as by the means of an intermediate ladder. And this is properly the possession of wayfarers. . ."
27. The Life of St. Francis, trans. E. Gurney Salter (London: J.M. Dent, 1947), p. 369 (hereafter, Life); Legenda maior XI.1.
28. Collationes in Hexaemeron I.17, quoted by Ewert Cousins, "Myth and Symbol in Bonaventure," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 45 (1971), p. 89.
29. In III Sent. d. 28, Q. 1, concl., contained in English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis, trans. Fr. Benen Fahy, O.F.M., ed. Marion A. Habig (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973), p. 849 (hereafter, Omnibus). Compare Itinerarium I.7.
30. Msgr. Ronald Knox, Occasional Sermons, ed. Philip Caraman, S.J. (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1960), "Lisieux and Assisi," p. 97, emphasis added.
31. Life p. 353; Legenda maior VIII.6.
32. D.P. St. John, op. cit., p. 203.
33. Life p. 357; Legenda maior VIII.11.
34. As he tells his readers at the opening of the Itinerarium, Prologue, ¤4: "I wish to warn them, that the mirror of the external world put before them is of little or no avail unless the mirror of our soul has been cleansed and polished." Compare Itinerarium I.8.
35. Life p. 325; Legenda maior V.9.
36. Life p. 335; Legenda maior V.12.
37. Introduction to Itinerarium, p. 14. Compare Legenda minor IV.1.
38. Life p. 349; Legenda maior VII.13.
39. Admonitions I in Omnibus p. 78.
40. See Legenda maior VII.12-13.
41. Omnibus pp. 105-106.
42. Legenda maior VI and Legenda minor IV.2.
43. E. Randolph Daniel, "St. Bonaventure a Faithful Disciple of St. Francis? A Reexamination of the Question," S. Bonaventura 1274-1974: Studies in Commemoration of the 700th Anniversary of His Death (Rome: Collegio S. Bonaventura Grottaferrata, 1972-1973), vol. 2, p. 181.
44. Life pp. 359-360; Legenda maior IX.4.
45. Life p. 358; Legenda maior IX.1.
46. Life p. 386; Legena maior XIII.5.
47. Life p. 359; Legenda maior IX.3.
48. Omnibus p. 822; Legenda minor VI.2. See also Life pp. 384-385 (Legenda maior XIII.3): "At length he understood therefrom, the Lord revealing it unto him, that this vision had been thus presented unto his gaze by the divine providence, that the friend of Christ might have foreknowledge that he was to be wholly transformed into the likeness of Christ Crucified, not by martyrdom of body, but by enkindling of heart."
49. See Omnibus p. 842, Sermon IV on St. Francis: "St. Francis, therefore, resembled heaven by reason of his all-embracing love; but the Cross is the sign of perfect love, and so it had to be seen in him."
50. De reductione artium ad theologiam, trans. Sr. Emma ThŽrse Healy (New York: The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University, 1955), ¤26, p. 41.

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