Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor

Saint Bonaventure entered the Franciscan order at the age of twenty-two and was sent to Paris to complete his studies. It was in Paris that his reputation for genius manifested itself, and here that he became a close friend of Thomas Aquinas. He was elected to govern the Franciscans and did so for seventeen years. For this he is called the “second founder” of the Franciscan order. Once when the pope was looking for him, he sent a delegation to find him. Bonaventure was found at a Franciscan monastery, washing the dishes. The saint asked them to hang the hat on the bough of a tree because, he explained, he couldn’t decently take it up with his greasy hands. Only when he had finished his work did Bonaventure take up the hat and go out to greet the legates.

Many of us tend to take ourselves too seriously from time to time. We sometimes see ourselves as better, smarter, richer, more successful than others, and look down on them. Bonaventure recognized that whatever gifts he had received came from God. They did not make him a better person than his “brother and master.”