"In prayer we must enter with the Beloved into the chamber of the heart and there remain alone with Him. We must forget all external things, and with our whole heart and all our mind and all our affections and desires endeavour to lift our souls up to God. We should endeavour by the ardour of our devotion to mount higher and higher until we enter even into the heavenly court, and there with the eyes of the soul having caught sight of our Beloved, and having tasted how sweet the Lord is, we should rush into His embrace, kissing Him with the lips of tenderest devotion. Thus are we carried out of ourselves, rapt up to Heaven, and as it were, transformed into Christ." The Saint proceeds to explain how the ecstatic state is reached. "It sometimes happens," he says, "that the mind is rapt out of itself when we are so inflamed with heavenly desires that everything earthly becomes distasteful, and the fire of divine love burns beyond measure, so that the soul melts like wax, and is dissolved--ascending up before the throne of God like the fumes of fragrant incense. Again, it sometimes arrives that the soul is so flooded with divine light and overwhelmed by the vision of God's beauty that it is stricken with [{80}] bewilderment and dislodged from its bearings. And the deeper it sinks down by self-abasement in the presence of God's beauty, like a streak of lightning, the quicker it is caught up and rapt out of itself. Finally, it occurs that the soul inebriated by the fulness of interior sweetness utterly forgets what it is and what it has been, and is transported into a state of ineffable beatitude and entirely permeated with uncreated love. It is forced to cry out with the Prophet: 'How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts. My soul longeth and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God'" (Ps. LXXXIII.).
Effusions such as these assuredly give us an insight into the extraordinary love that burned in the soul of Bonaventure. From the spiritual tepidity that oppresses us we can only contemplate it with wistful admiration. It proves to us indeed "how wonderful is God in His Saints," and how profoundly and intimately He influences the hearts of His chosen ones and attaches them inseparably to Himself.
It will be fitting to bring this chapter to a close by quoting, as outside testimony, the tribute which Cardinal Wiseman paid [Footnote 36] to this feature of our Saint's life. "There is another writer upon this inexhaustible subject," said His Eminence, "who more than any other will justify all that I have [{81}] said; and, moreover, prove the influence which these festivals of the Passion may exercise upon the habitual feelings of a Christian. I speak of the exquisite meditations of St. Bonaventure upon the life of Christ, a work in which it is difficult what most to admire, the riches of imagination surpassed by no poet, or the tenderness of sentiment, or the variety of adaptation. After having led us through the affecting incidents of Our Saviour's infancy and life, and brought us to the last moving scenes, his steps become slower from the variety of his beautiful but melancholy fancies; he now proceeds, not from year to year, or from month to month, or from day to day, but each hour has its meditations, and every act of the last tragedy affords him matter for pathetic imagination. But when at the conclusion, he comes to propose to us the method of practising his holy contemplations, he so distributes them, that from Monday to Wednesday shall embrace the whole, of Our Saviour's life; but from Thursday to Sunday inclusive each day shall be entirely taken up with the mystery which the Church in Holy Week has allotted to it. In this manner did he, with many others, extend throughout the whole year the solemn commemorations of Holy Week, for the promotion of individual devotion and sanctification, even as the Church had done for the public welfare."
[Footnote 36: Four Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy Week. Lecture the Fourth.]
CHAPTER XI.
THE ARCHBISHOPRIC OF YORK.
In a previous chapter reference was made to St. Bonaventure's appointment to the Archiepiscopal See of York. It occurred in the year 1265. The See of York had been rendered vacant by the death of Bishop Godfrey de Kinton, or William Ludham--it is not certain which of these two prelates immediately preceded Bonaventure's appointment. The English chroniclers do not refer to our Saint's nomination. The fact may never have come to their knowledge, or their silence may be accounted for by their opposition to foreign appointments. The epoch was one of the most troublous in the history of England. The country was in the throes of the civil war kindled by the revolt of the Earl of Leicester against Henry III. The partial success of the Earl and the captivity of Henry moved Pope Urban to intervene. He despatched Cardinal Guido to England as his legate, but the latter having been threatened with death if he dared to set foot in the country, remained in France. His mission was a failure. After a short delay, and some ineffectual negotiations, he returned to Rome, where shortly afterwards he was raised to the Papacy. It was this Pontiff who appointed Bonaventure to the See of York. He was thoroughly acquainted with the disturbed state of the country [{83}] and knew full well the manifold and serious difficulties which would beset the occupant of so important a See. In the Bull of appointment he makes particular reference to this. He beseeches the Saint to attend diligently to the needs of the Church and to work for the peace and welfare of the Kingdom "sorely disturbed and convulsed by the storms of civil strife".
The condition of the Church in England was not more satisfactory than that of the State. It was deprived of the liberty necessary for its genuine welfare. In the year 1261, we hear the Bishops of England, in Council at Lambeth, bewailing the violation of the Church's rights which they asserted were trampled under foot. They enumerated the following abuses which commonly prevailed: the undue interference of the civil power in ecclesiastical matters; the intrusion by secular authority of incumbents into benefices; the unjust and violent seizure of Church property and the goods of the clergy; the pretension of the Crown to the right of patronage in all the more important benefices; finally, the plurality of benefices, and the tenure of benefices by foreign ecclesiastics.
No sooner was the Papal Bull delivered to Bonaventure than he hastened to Perugia, where the Pope was residing, and besought him not to impose upon him so weighty a responsibility. We know not what reasons he adduced, but they must have been very powerful to overcome the Pope's [{84}] resolution and turn him from his purpose, for he seems to have chosen Bonaventure after the fullest deliberation and to have been very intent upon his accepting the dignity. It appears that the Chapter of York had chosen its Dean as Archbishop, but the Pope refused to ratify the election, declaring that on the present occasion he reserved to himself the right of appointment. In the Bull which he issued to our Saint, [Footnote 37] he says:--
[Footnote 37: Cf. Wadding, Anno 1265. No. 14.]