On St. Bonaventure's Concept of History
"The Richness of the Word of Christ is Inexhaustible"
H.H. Benedict XVI
March 10, 2010
www.zenit.org
Dear brothers and sisters!
I am happy to receive you in this basilica and to address my cordial
welcome to each one of you. I greet the pilgrimage promoted by the Don
Carlo Gnocchi Foundation after the recent beatification of this luminous
figure of the Milanese clergy. Dear friends, I am very aware of your
extraordinary work in favor of children in difficulty, the disabled, the
elderly, the terminally ill and in the vast realm of social and health
care. Through your projects of solidarity, you make an effort to
continue the meritorious work begun by Blessed Carlo Gnocchi, apostle of
modern times and genius of Christian charity, who, accepting the
challenges of his time, dedicated himself with every care to little
dismembered children, victims of war, in whom he saw the face of God.
Dynamic and enthusiastic priest and keen educator, he lived the Gospel
integrally in the different contexts of life, in which he operated with
incessant zeal and tireless apostolic ardor. In this Year for Priests,
once again the Church sees him as a model to imitate. May his brilliant
example sustain the commitment of all those who dedicate themselves to
the service of the weakest, and awaken in priests the lively desire to
rediscover and reinvigorate the awareness of the extraordinary gift of
grace that the ordained ministry represents for one who has received it,
for the whole Church and for the world.
We conclude our meeting singing the prayer of the Our Father.
[Catechesis in Paul VI Hall]
Dear brothers and sisters,
Last week I spoke of the life and personality of St. Bonaventure of
Bagnoregio. This morning I would like to continue with the presentation,
reflecting on part of his literary work and his doctrine.
As I already said, among various merits, St. Bonaventure had that of
interpreting authentically and faithfully the figure of St. Francis of
Assisi, whom he venerated and studied with great love. In a particular
way, in the times of St. Bonaventure a current of Friars Minor called
"spiritual" held that there was a totally new phase of history
inaugurated with St. Francis; the "eternal Gospel" had appeared, of
which Revelation speaks, which replaced the New Testament. This group
affirmed that the Church had now exhausted her historical role, and in
her place came a charismatic community of free men guided interiorly by
the Spirit, namely, the "spiritual Franciscans." At the base of the
ideas of this group were the writings of a Cistercian abbot, Joachim of
Fiore, who died in 1202. In his works, he affirmed a Trinitarian rhythm
of history. He considered the Old Testament as the age of the Father,
followed by the time of the Son, the time of the Church. To be awaited
yet was the third age, 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 liberty of the time of the Son, in the Church,
up to the full liberty of the children of God, in the period of the Holy
Spirit, which would have been also the period of peace among men, of the
reconciliation of peoples and religions. Joachim of Fiore aroused the
hope that the beginning of the new time would come from a new
monasticism. It is thus understandable that a group of Franciscans
thought it recognized in St. Francis of Assisi the initiator of the new
time and in his order the community of the new period -- the community
of the time of the Holy Spirit, which left behind it the hierarchical
Church, to begin a new Church of the Spirit, no longer connected to the
old structures.
There was, hence, the risk of a very serious misunderstanding of the
message of St. Francis, of his humble fidelity to the Gospel and to the
Church, and such a mistake implied an erroneous vision of Christianity
as a whole.
St. Bonaventure, who in 1257 became minister-general of the Franciscans,
found himself before serious tension within his own order due,
precisely, to those who espoused this current of "spiritual
Franciscans," which aligned itself to Joachim of Fiore. Precisely to
respond to this group and to give unity again to the order, St.
Bonaventure carefully studied the authentic writings of Joachim of Fiore
and those attributed to him and, taking into account the need to present
correctly the figure and message of his beloved St. Francis, he wished
to show a correct view of the theology of history.
St. Bonaventure addressed the problem in fact in his last work, a
collection of conferences to monks of the Paris studio, which remained
unfinished and which was completed with the transcriptions of the
hearers. It was titled "Hexaemeron," that is, an allegorical explanation
of the six days of creation. The Fathers of the Church considered the
six or seven days of the account of creation as a prophecy of the
history of the world, of humanity. The seven days represented for them
seven periods of history, later interpreted also as seven millennia.
With Christ we would have entered the last, namely, the sixth period of
history, which would then be followed by the great sabbath of God. St.
Bonaventure accounts for this historical interpretation of the relation
of the days of creation, but in a very free and innovative way. For him,
two phenomena of his time render necessary a new interpretation of the
course of history:
The first: the figure of St. Francis, the man totally united to Christ
up to communion of the stigmata, almost an alter Christus, and with St.
Francis the new community created by him, different from the monasticism
known up to then. This phenomenon called for a new interpretation, as a
novelty of God which appeared in 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, called for an answer.
As minister-general of the Order of Franciscans, St. Bonaventure had
seen immediately that with the spiritualistic conception, inspired by
Joachim of Fiore, the order was not governable, but was going logically
toward anarchy. For him there were two consequences:
The first: the practical need of structures and of insertion in the
reality of the hierarchical Church, of the real Church, needed a
theological foundation, also because the others, those who followed the
spiritualist conception, showed an apparent theological foundation.
The second: although taking into account the necessary realism, it was
not necessary to lose the novelty of the figure of St. Francis.
How did St. Bonaventure respond to the practical and theoretical need?
Of his answer I can only give here a very schematic and incomplete
summary in some points:
1. St. Bonaventure rejected the idea of the Trinitarian rhythm of
history. God is one for the whole of history and he is not divided into
three divinities. As a consequence, history is one, even if it is a
journey and -- according to St. Bonaventure -- a journey of progress.
2. Jesus Christ is the last word of God -- in him God has said all,
giving and expressing himself. More than himself, God cannot express,
cannot give. The Holy Spirit is 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" (John 14:26), "he will take
what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:15). Hence, there is not
another higher Gospel, there is not another Church to await. Because of
this, the Order of St. Francis had also to insert itself in this Church,
in her faith, in her hierarchical order.
3. This does not mean that the Church is immobile, fixed in the past and
that novelties cannot be exercised in her. "Opera Christi non deficiunt,
sed proficiunt," the works of Christ do not go backward, do not fail,
but progress, says the saint in the letter "De tribus quaestionibus."
Thus St. Bonaventure formulates explicitly the idea of progress, and
this is a novelty in comparison with the Fathers of the Church and a
great part of his contemporaries. For St. Bonaventure, Christ is no
longer, as he was for the Fathers of the Church, the end, but the center
of history; history does not end with Christ, but a new period begins.
Another consequence is the following: prevailing up to that moment was
the idea that the Fathers of the Church were at the absolute summit of
theology, all the following generations could only be their disciples.
Even St. Bonaventure recognizes the Fathers as teachers for ever, but
the phenomenon of St. Francis gave him the certainty that the richness
of the word of Christ is inexhaustible and that also new lights can
appear in the new generations. The uniqueness of Christ also guarantees
novelties and renewal in all the periods of history.
Certainly, the Franciscan Order -- so he stresses -- belongs to the
Church of Jesus Christ, to the Apostolic Church, and cannot build itself
on a utopian spiritualism. But, at the same time, the novelty of such an
order is valid in comparison with classic monasticism, and St.
Bonaventure -- as I said in the preceding catechesis -- defended this
novelty against the attacks of the secular clergy of Paris. The
Franciscans do not have a fixed monastery, they can be present
everywhere to proclaim the Gospel. Precisely the break with stability,
characteristic of monasticism, in favor of a new flexibility, restored
to the Church her missionary dynamism.
At this point perhaps it is useful to say that also today there are
views according to which the whole history of the Church in the second
millennium is a permanent decline; some see the decline already
immediately after the New Testament. In reality, "opera Christi non
deficiunt, sed proficiunt," the works of Christ do not go backward, but
progress. What would the Church be without the new spirituality of the
Cistercians, of the Franciscans and Dominicans, of the spirituality of
St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, and so on? This
affirmation is also valid today: "Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed
proficiunt," they go forward.
St. Bonaventure teaches us the whole of the necessary discernment, even
severe, of the sober realism and of openness to new charisms given by
Christ, in the Holy Spirit, to his Church. And while this idea of
decline is repeated, there is also the other idea, this "spiritualistic
utopianism," which is repeated. We know, in fact, how after the Second
Vatican Council, some were convinced that everything should be new, that
there should be another Church, that the pre-conciliar Church was
finished and that we would have another, totally "other" Church. An
anarchic utopianism! And thanks be to God, the wise helmsmen of Peter's
Barque, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, on one hand defended the
novelty of the council and on the other, at the same time, defended the
uniqueness and continuity of the Church, which is always a Church of
sinners and always a place of grace.
4. In this connection, St. Bonaventure, as minister-general of the
Franciscans, took a line of government in which it was very clear that
the new order could not, as a community, live at the same
"eschatological height" of St. Francis, in which he saw the future world
anticipated, but -- guided, at the same time, by healthy realism and
spiritual courage -- had to come as close as possible to the maximum
realization of the Sermon on the Mount, which for St. Francis was the
rule, though taking into account the limits of man, marked by original
sin.
Thus we see that for St. Bonaventure, to govern was not simply a task
but was above all to think and to pray. At the base of his government we
always find prayer and thought; all his decisions resulted from
reflection, from thought illumined by prayer. His profound contact with
Christ always accompanied his work of minister-general and that is why
he composed a series of theological-mystical writings, which express the
spirit of his government and manifest the intention of guiding the order
interiorly, of governing, that is, not only through commands and
structures, but through guiding and enlightening souls, orienting them
to Christ.
Of these his writings, which are the soul of his government and show the
way to follow either as an individual or a community, I would like to
mention only one, his masterwork, the "Itinerarium mentis in Deum,"
which is a "manual" of mystical contemplation. This book was conceived
in a place of profound spirituality: the hill of La Verna, where St.
Francis had received the stigmata. In the introduction, the author
illustrates the circumstances that gave origin to his writing: "While I
meditated on the possibility of the soul ascending to God, presented to
me, among others, was that wondrous event that occurred in that place to
Blessed Francis, namely, the vision of the winged seraphim in the form
of a crucifix. And meditating on this, immediately I realized that such
a vision offered me the contemplative ecstasy of Father Francis himself
and at the same time the way that leads to it" (Journey of the Mind in
God, Prologue, 2, in Opere di San Bonaventura. Opuscoli Teologici / 1,
Rome, 1993, p. 499).
The six wings of the seraphim thus became the symbol of six stages that
lead man progressively to the knowledge of God through observation of
the world and of creatures and through the exploration of the soul
itself with its faculties, up 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
one can reach this mystical communion with God, would make one descend
to the depth of the heart: "If you now yearn to know how that happens
(mystical communion with God), ask grace, not doctrine; desire, not the
intellect; the groaning of prayer, not the study of the letter; the
spouse, not the teacher; God, not man; darkness not clarity; not light
but the fire that inflames everything and transport to God with strong
unctions and ardent affections. ... We enter therefore into darkness, we
silence worries, the passions and illusions; we pass with Christ
Crucified from this world to the Father, so that, after having seen him,
we say with Philip: that is enough for me" (Ibid., VII, 6).
Dear friends, let us take up the invitation addressed to us by St.
Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, and let us enter the school of the
divine Teacher: We listen to his Word of life and truth, which resounds
in the depth of our soul. Let us purify our thoughts and actions, so
that he can dwell in us, and we can hear his divine voice, which draws
us toward true happiness.
[Translation by ZENIT]
[The Holy Father then greeted the people in several languages. In
English, he said:]
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In our catechesis on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, we return
to the teaching of Saint Bonaventure, the great Franciscan theologian of
the thirteenth century. Bonaventure refuted the idea, based on the
doctrine of Joachim of Fiore and associated with the "spiritual"
Franciscans, that Saint Francis had inaugurated a new and final age of
the Holy Spirit, to replace the age of Christ and the Church. In his
defence of the newness of the Franciscan charism, he developed a
remarkable theology of history and progress, based on the definitiveness
of the Christ event and its enduring fruitfulness in the history of the
Church. He insisted that Christian revelation will not be surpassed in
history, and that the future fulfillment of God's plan remains the
object of our Christian hope.
Bonaventure was influenced by the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, which
present God as the origin and goal of a goodness which pervades the
cosmos. In his work, The Journey of the Mind to God, he guides the soul
from created realities to the mystic contemplation of the Triune God.
Bonaventure made Christ the centre of his theology; his writings invite
us to welcome Christ's word into our hearts and thus to experience the
joy of God's eternal love.
I offer a warm welcome to the many school groups present, including the
Bruderhof group from England and the students of Saint Michael's Holy
Cross Secondary School in Dublin, Ireland. The developments taking place
in Northern Ireland in these days are a promising sign of hope, and I
pray that they will help to consolidate the future of peace desired by
all. Upon the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors I invoke God's
abundant blessings.
Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
[He concluded in Italian:]
I greet, finally, the youth, sick and newlyweds. Dear young people, may
the Lenten journey that we are taking be an occasion for authentic
conversion that leads you to maturity of faith in Christ. Dear sick
people, participating with love in the suffering of the Son of God
incarnate, you are able to share preliminarily in the glory and joy of
his resurrection. And you, dear newlyweds, find in the alliance that, at
the cost of his blood, Christ has made with his Church, the support and
model of your marital pact and of your mission at the service of the
Gospel.
I am profoundly close to the persons hit by the recent earthquake in
Turkey and their families. I assure each one of my prayers, while I ask
the international community to contribute rescue services with
promptness and generosity.
My deep sympathy also goes to the victims of the atrocious violence that
bloodies Nigeria and that has not spared even defenseless children. Once
again I repeat with a heartbroken spirit that violence does not resolve
conflicts, but only increases the tragic consequences. I appeal to all
those who have civil and religious responsibility in the country, to do
their utmost for the security and peaceful coexistence of all the
population. I express, finally, my closeness to Nigerian pastors and
faithful and I pray that, strong and firm in hope, they will be
authentic witnesses of reconciliation.
[Translation by ZENIT]
Return to General Audiences...
See Audience on St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas' Approach to Theology...
See Audience on St. Bonaventure...
Return to Lives of the Saints...
