Praying with St Bonaventure
Alison Morgan
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This led to the writing of his most famous work, The Journey of the
Mind to God. Often called the ‘second founder’ of the
Franciscan order, Bonaventure preserved Francis’ emphasis on
simplicity whilst giving the movement structural stability and
theological coherence. His writings are characterised by the conviction
that the intellectual and emotional aspects of the spiritual life
should work together. Made a Cardinal in 1273, he died in 1274. He was
canonised in 1482.
It’s often said that every time we read a new book we should also
read an old one. And so I thought I would reread one of the greatest
books on the spiritual life ever written: Bonaventure’s Journey
of the Mind to God. His basic concept is simple: prayer, he suggested,
is like climbing a ladder. You start at the bottom with the simple
things of nature, and you gradually ascend until you are caught up into
God himself. Bonaventure wrote in Latin, and his language is not easy.
And yet his book offers a model for prayer which is inspiring in its
breadth and simplicity.
1. Finding God in the created world
The universe itself is a ladder by which we can ascend into God. Let
us place our first step in the ascent at the bottom, presenting to
ourselves the whole material world as a mirror through which we may
pass over to God, the supreme Craftsman.
We begin by using our senses to contemplate the natural world, for in
it we find the footprints of the Creator. Every element of the world
outside is a shadow, echo and picture of the eternal God, for ever
since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine
nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen
through the things he has made (Romans 1.20). And as we observe with
our senses, so we wonder with our imagination at the power, wisdom and
goodness of God.
It was Francis himself who first looked to the natural world, rather
than to the power and pomp of the Church, for the basis of his
spirituality. And through the ages the natural world has been a
constant source of inspiration to those with the time to stop and
stare. The rippling of the wind across a sea of ripened wheat,
footprint of the Spirit of God sweeping over the face of the waters;
the soaring of kites on a rising thermal, picture of trust and
provision; the delicate symmetrical beauty of flaked ice crystals,
reflection of the order which binds the universe – all draw us
towards God.
Much of Bonaventure’s own delight was in the presence of number
in the universe: the pattern of music and dance, proportion as the
basis of beauty, the existence of number within the human mind. He
would surely be delighted to know that a chaffinch sings 45 notes per
second; that the humble gecko uses molecular bonding to walk
faultlessly on any surface; and that the basic component of matter is
now thought to be a dancing subatomic string. He would wonder at the
fact that had the rate of expansion of the universe one second after
the Big Bang been smaller or greater by one part in a million, life
itself would not exist. And more mundanely, he would surely have smiled
at the discovery that no fewer than 287 species of beetle have now been
identified in Buckingham Palace gardens. He who does not turn towards
the First Principle on account of such indications, Bonaventure remarks
- momentarily abandoning the subtleties of scholastic Latin - is
stupid.
The mathematical structure of reality (www.fractalschlaraffenland.net)
2. Finding God within ourselves
We must also enter into our soul, which is God’s
image…The soul itself is an image and similitude of God, to this
extent, that present to itself and having him present, it seizes Him by
act and through power.
The second phase of Bonaventure’s journey to God takes us from
the outer world to the inner world. In this phase we enter into our own
mind and look for God within ourselves, for we are made in his image.
The journey becomes a little more demanding, as we enter into first
philosophical and then theological activity. Beginning with our natural
capacities of memory, knowledge and choice, we find ourselves led into
an awareness of eternity, of truth and of goodness. Through memory we
are aware of past, present and future, and thus of time and eternity.
Through knowledge and reason, we arrive at an understanding of
necessary and contingent truth, and therefore of Truth itself. And
through the exercise of choice we learn to distinguish between what is
good and what is better, and are thus made aware of the existence of a
supreme good, God in person.
Once we have considered our own natural powers, the powers of the
created self, we move on to search for God more reliably through the
redeemed self. We live in a world of competing distractions and
unsatisfied desires. But through the work of Christ on the cross, we
may learn to seek and receive the theological virtues of faith, hope
and love. These three virtues restore to us our spiritual senses, and
remove the barrier which kept us from God. And so it is that we are
enabled to read and understand the words of Scripture, to receive and
be filled by the Holy Spirit, and begin to understand the breadth and
depth and height and length of the love of Christ.
Seeking God within..
This, then, is the phase of the spiritual life as we still know it
today, made possible through Christ who, as it were, comes to mend the
ladder between man and God broken by Adam at the time of the Fall.
And yet, says Bonaventure, there is more.
3. Finding God in eternity
We must get beyond to what is eternal, most spiritual and above us, by gazing upon the First Principle… [for] it still remains .. to pass beyond and above not only this world but moreover the soul itself.
We have contemplated God outside of ourselves, through his footprints in the created world; we have contemplated him within our own souls, through the image of himself which he has implanted there. The final phase of our journey consists of the contemplation of the invisible and eternal things of God. This is a phase which few complete, and which comes only momentarily. It is the phase of the mystic, attained perhaps only by those who are able to give a great deal of time to the work of contemplation. Francis himself achieved it, and Bonaventure writes of it here. Within the pages of scripture similar experiences are recorded by Isaiah, with his vision of the seraphs before the throne of God, and by Paul, who was ‘caught up to the third heaven’. Hildegard of Bingen had tried to draw it in the 12th century, and Dante described it in poetry in the 14th. Mystics down the ages have had similar experiences.But we, probably, have not. It does however make exciting, if difficult, reading. Beginning with a simple study of the Names of God in the Old and New Testaments, we move to a consideration of being and the source of being. Bonaventure manages to describe this only as being like looking into pure light, and finding that the purity is so total that the eye seems to see nothing at all. But the result will be that our soul will be filled with wonder and admiration, and a deep appreciation of what it means that God is Alpha and Omega, pure and absolute being, first and last: or, to use the 12th century image, that he is like an intelligible sphere, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
From this we move to enter into contemplation of the inexpressible and incomprehensible paradoxes which lie at the heart of the Christian faith: the Trinity and the Incarnation. This is an activity which so overwhelms the mind that those who have experienced it are unable to properly recall or express it. As the mind is finally drawn to the Cross of Christ, we hear the voice of Jesus himself: Today you will be with me in Paradise. At this point all intellectual activities are relinquished, and the soul is swept into God.
