In his undertaking Bonaventure had before him an ideal. He wished to present Francis as the chosen servant of God, raised up to be the founder and head of a great Religious Order. Accordingly, his attention is fixed on the supernatural rather than on the natural element in Francis, and he deals more with those aspects of his life and character that bring him within practical reach of his spiritual children than with those that lift him up into a sphere so high that the ordinary soul dares not aspire to it. He distinguishes judiciously between what Francis recommended and practised himself and that which he strictly enjoined upon his Brethren. Here the conciliatory aim of the book is apparent. But he is never betrayed into anything unworthy of an upright biographer. All his facts are unassailable--nothing of importance is suppressed or distorted. In consequence, such a picture of Francis as his spiritual children required is the result. This was the end Bonaventure had in view, and having accomplished it, it matters little if his work forfeits the approval of those modern critics who, in the life of Francis, wish to find a record of the natural rather than the supernatural.
From this "Greater Legend"--as it is called--Bonaventure made an abstract of the salient events, and arranged them under seven headings, each of which contained nine lessons or readings. This was called the "Smaller Legend" and was intended [{64}] for the use of the Religious in the Divine Office during the Octave of St. Francis. To this smaller work attaches the same historical accuracy that distinguishes the Greater Legend. In many instances events are described in the same words; other incidents are given in abridged form; the whole work is marked by a more liturgic style, and occasionally fresh details are given.
CHAPTER IX.
INTERIOR SPIRIT.
Hitherto we have considered principally the outward life of Bonaventure; we now turn to those interior virtues which made him a saint. Notwithstanding his manifold labours and the eminently strenuous life he led he was a perfect master of the interior life. A glance at his writings will show how thoroughly he understood the secrets of Mystic Theology, and how intimately acquainted he was with every aspect of the spiritual life. There is no phase of divine contemplation that he does not seem to have learnt by personal experience. It was this very striking characteristic which gained for him the title of Seraphic Doctor.
He possessed the rare faculty of keeping his mind habitually fixed upon God in the midst of external occupations. To this may be traced the very remarkable attribute of his writings whereby [{65}] every subject he treats of is made ultimately to converge Godwards. In his treatises "The Journey of the Mind to God," and "The Reduction of the Arts to Theology," the workings of his soul in this respect are systematized and reduced to scientific order. St. Antoninus notes this feature of Bonaventure's works when he says: "According as Bonaventure made progress in science and the knowledge of the Scriptures, so, too, he grew in the grace of devotion. For whatever he perceived with the intellect he reduced to the form of prayer and worship of God and kept meditating on it continually in his heart."
Besides maintaining at all times this habitual spirit of recollection, our Saint sometimes withdrew entirely from the cares of his office and gave himself exclusively to prayer and recollection. It was on one such occasion, in the seclusion of Mount Alverna, that he conceived the idea of, and actually composed, his "Journey of the Mind to God". He tells us this himself. "On an occasion," he says, [Footnote 30] "when, after the example of the most Blessed Francis, I, a sinner, sighed for spiritual peace--I who, though unworthy in every respect, am yet his seventh successor in the general ministry of the Brethren--it happened that about the thirty-third year after his death I had withdrawn to Mount Alverna as to a quiet place where I might find [{66}] the peace I sought. Whilst there, as I reflected on certain elevations of the soul to God, amongst other thoughts there occurred to me the miracle which happened to Blessed Francis in this place, viz. the apparition of the Crucified Seraph. On reflection it instantly seemed to me that the vision signified the lifting up of St. Francis by contemplation and the manner in which it was accomplished."
[Footnote 30: "Opera Omnia," Tom. V, Prologus, p. 295.]
Unfortunately the biographers of Bonaventure give us no definite insight into his interior spirit. There is no attempt at depicting that inner life which by words and actions, by trains of thought, lines of policy and personal habits, is always revealed to observant contemporaries. We have innumerable vague, though glowing, appreciations of his virtues and character in general. We are told most emphatically that he was a saint, but what kind of a saint we are not informed. In this dearth of particulars we must fall back upon the Saint's writings. We can justly hope to find in them some revelation of his spirit--of those particular ideas that guided and animated him. We can take it for granted that what he taught he practised. The fact that he is a canonized Saint forbids us to think otherwise. Hence, in his numerous descriptions of those interior virtues that should adorn the spiritual life in general, we may see a reflection of those virtues which flourished in his own soul.
There is a small work on the spiritual life written by our Saint in which he depicts the virtues that [{67}] make for religious perfection. The book is entitled "The Perfection of Life," and it reveals the spirit of Bonaventure more simply and, for our present purpose, more suitably than his greater works. It was written at the request of the Mother Abbess of some Community of Poor Clares. He refers to this fact in his introduction, and his words breathe such a deep spirit of humility that I cannot refrain from quoting them.