St Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis : Prologue : 3

St Francis receives the Christ Child from Mary.
 by Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1617). 
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille. Public domain.

    The following posts present The Life of St Francis (1181-1226) written by St Bonaventure (1221-1274) who joined the Franciscan Order in 1243. Confirmed as seventh Minister General of the Franciscans in 1257, he later wrote this life of St Francis (Legenda Major Sancti Francisci, c1260-63).

     I offer this annotated presentation of St Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis firstly as a small gift to our gentle Queen and Mother in gratitude for her many graces and favours, at the same time praying she will continue to provide help and protection for the author and his family; and secondly, to honour and thank St Francis whose name I received at my Confirmation in 1961 when I was seven.

This presentation of St Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis is based on E. Gurney Slater’s English translation published in 1904, to which I have added Scriptural excerpts and occasional comments in footnotes after each section.

Prologue

- 3 -

“Snatched from the jaws of death, while yet a child, by his invocation.”
The Healing of Saint Bonaventure by Saint Francis (1628), by
Francisco Herrera. Louvre Museum. Public domain.

1. Feeling myself unworthy and insufficient to relate the life most worthy of all imitation of this most venerable man, I should have in no wise attempted it had not the glowing love of the Brethren[1] moved me thereunto, 

2. and the unanimous importunity of the Chapter General incited me, and that devotion compelled me, which I am bound to feel for our holy Father.[2] 

3. For I, who remember as though it happened but yesterday how I was snatched from the jaws of death, while yet a child, by his invocation and merits[3], should fear to be convicted of the sin of ingratitude did I refrain from publishing his praises. 

4. And this was with me the chief motive for undertaking this task, to wit, that I – who own my life of body and mind to have been preserved unto me by God through his means, and have proved his power in mine own person, 

5. and knew the virtues of his life – might collect as best I could, albeit I could not fully, his deeds and words (fragments, as it were, overlooked in part, in part scattered) so that they might not be utterly lost on the death of those that lived with the servant of God.[4]

Footnotes

[1] The Franciscan order was founded in 1209 with the oral approval of Pope Innocent III.

[2] In 1260, thirty-four years after the death of Saint Francis, the Franciscan Order held a general chapter in Narbonne. The chapter members asked St Bonaventure to write a new “Life of Saint Francis,” (the Legenda Maior Sancti Francisci) which would be used as the official and only biography of their beloved founder. St Bonaventure completed this work and formally presented it to the friars at the general chapter of Pisa in 1263.

[3] There are those who have stated that St Francis cured John (the baptismal name of St Bonaventure) as a child and thereupon exclaimed “O buona ventura!” – hence his name of Bonaventure. It is not clear from Bonaventure’s words in para. 3. whether this occurred in person before the death of Francis or afterwards through his intercession. John was born five years before Francis died so the former would have been possible.  There is no reference in either the Papal Bull of Canonisation (Superna Caelestis, 1482) or the bull of Declaration as a Doctor (Triumphantis Hierusalem, 1588). 

[4] Cf. “And when they were filled, he said to his disciples: Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost.” John vi, 12.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me shall not sin. They that explain me shall have lifeeverlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.