St. Thomas Aquinas coming one day to pay a visit to Saint Bonaventure, asked him in what books he had learned his sacred science. St. Bonaventure, pointing to his crucifix before him, said: “This is the source of all my knowledge. I study only Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
Saint Bonaventure
“Through Him All Things Were Made..”
How often is that said, and how often not fully realized..
One of my favorite Saints. A learned man, and made a cardinal for his works. A papal delegation brought his cardinalaital garb to him one day while he was washing the Abbey’s dishes. He advised them to hang it on the branch of a nearby tree until he finished with his chore.
If he had lived through the entire council of Lyons, I am convinced some of the gap between East and West would have been closed. The Orthodox delegation was very impressed with Bonaventure and more receptive to Franciscan thought than the Dominican form of scholasticism.
Dante nailed it in Paradiso where he had Saint Bonvanture celebrating Saint Dominic and Saint Thomas Aquinas celebrating Saint Francis of Assisi.
Jesus Christ gives man infinite and perfect love. Mankind fails to love perfectly and cannot love infinitely. We have the love of Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters.