Another incident which touchingly illustrates the absolute poverty in which the Saint died is recorded by Wadding. Although Bishop and Cardinal, his sole possession on his death-bed was his breviary. Everything else he had distributed to the poor, and even the breviary he regarded not as his own but as belonging to his Order, and he directed that it should be restored to the Brethren after his death.
We would fain linger by the deathbed of the Saint but the almost complete absence of details gives us no encouragement to do so. We are not told even where he died. Was it in the convent of his Order and surrounded by his Brethren, or elsewhere? How did he bear himself in that final struggle? What were his sentiments? What were [{110}] his last words? None of these things are recorded. Apart from general observations concerning his virtues and his holiness we only know with certainty that during the night of 4 July, 1274, Bonaventure passed to his reward.
We may well imagine that death has no terror for the Saints; at the same time, we cannot say that it has any special attraction for them. Even our Holy Father, St. Francis, whilst unawed at the approach of "Sister Death," seemed yet submissively to cling to life. It is a natural and a legitimate instinct. Life is the sum total of our temporal gifts, and its preservation is a duty we owe to the giver. It is true, granted the immortality of the soul, and future reward, that there is a greater good than the body's life and that to secure it we may, and in some cases ought, to forfeit the latter. But these circumstances are abnormal and rarely occur. In the ordinary course of events the soul's welfare does not demand the body's death. The interests of body and soul run on parallel lines, and so long as right order is maintained they cannot collide. We read indeed that the Saints, vividly realizing the happiness of Heaven and aspiring to it with steadfast confidence, longed for death. St. Paul exclaiming: "I wish to be dissolved and to be with Christ," is quoted as an example of this. But the attitude thus expressed by the Apostle is not incompatible with a natural repugnance to, and shrinking from death. We believe this to be in [{111}] some degree the characteristic of all men, saints as well as sinners.
Bonaventure's death was regarded somewhat in the light of a public calamity. The effect it produced upon the Council of Lyons is narrated as follows. [Footnote 47] "At this time, whilst the Council was still sitting, the most reverend Father in Christ, the Lord Cardinal Bonaventure of most venerable memory was laid with the holy Fathers, filling, as we may believe, the Church Triumphant with joy at his advent, but affecting the Church Militant with incredible grief at his departure. For Greeks and Latins, clergy and laity, followed his bier with bitter tears, lamenting the grievous loss of so great a personage."
[Footnote 47: Author of the "Chronicles of Twenty-four Generals," Cf. "Analecta Franciscana," Tom. III, p. 356.]
In accordance with the custom of the time and country, Bonaventure was buried on the day of his death. His funeral was attended by the Pope and all the Prelates of the Council. Peter, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, celebrated Holy Mass and preached the funeral oration. He took for his text the pathetic words in which David laments the death of Jonathan (2 Kings 1. 26): "I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan--exceedingly beautiful and amiable above the love of women". The text was suggested no doubt by that striking characteristic of the Saint upon which all his biographers so strongly insist--his wonderful amiability. As one [{112}] writer [Footnote 48] expresses it: "This grace the Lord had granted him that whosoever looked on him was forthwith irresistibly drawn to love him".
[Footnote 48: The historian of the Council of Lyons. Cf. "Opera," Tom. X, p 67.]
At the next session of the General Council the Pope referred to the grievous loss sustained by the entire Church in the death of Bonaventure. And to mark his sense of gratitude for the immense labours he had undergone on its behalf he ordered all the priests and prelates of the Catholic world to offer up Holy Mass for the repose of his soul.
The Saint was buried in the church of the Friars Minor at Lyons. In the year 1434, a new church dedicated to St. Francis was erected in the city, and thither, as to a more suitable resting-place, the body was translated. This took place one hundred and sixty years after the Saint's death. Marvellous to relate, the head was then found to be entirely incorrupt. The hair, lips, teeth, and tongue were perfectly preserved and retained their natural colour. The people of Lyons were profoundly affected by this miracle, and they chose Bonaventure for the patron of their city. The movement, already on foot, to obtain his canonization received thereby a new and powerful impetus.
On the occasion of this translation the body of St. Bonaventure was placed in a costly reliquary at the command of the Minister-General, and kept at the Franciscan Church at Lyons. Later in the [{113}] same century, the Minister-General, Father Francis Samson, removed the arms of our Saint from Lyons, and entrusted them to the keeping of the Religious at Bagnorea. In the Cathedral Church of this town these relics are still piously venerated. Around the reliquary which encloses them runs the inscription, "Father Francis Samson, General, bequeathed this reliquary to the Convent of St. Francis in Bagnorea, 1 May, 1491 ".