CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI.
St. Bonaventure nominated to the See of York— Lfranciscan Missions.
'Quanto magnus es, humilia te in omnibus, et coram Deo invenies gratiam."—Ecc Les, iii, 20,
BONAVENTURE became every day more dear to Christian hearts.
The great ones of the earth loved him as a wise guide ; the faithful venerated him as a Saint whose virtues revived the Church of God; the Popes considered him to be a chosen vessel which the Holy Spirit had filled to overflowing with His sacred gifts; the Franciscans were attached to him as to a father whose love is continually increasing, and whose tenderness knows no bounds.
Alexander IV. had approved his election to the dignity of SuperiorGeneral while still quite young ; he had admired his conduct during the disputes of his Order with the University of Paris; and till his death he had maintained the highest opinion of his
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sanctity and of the wisdom with which he governed the children of St. Francis.
Urban IV. had succeeded Alexander IV. in 1261, and during his pontificate, which only lasted three years, he had taken the same interest in St. Bonaventure and in the members of his
Order as his predecessor had done.
Clement IV. had been the next to fill the Holy See.
He was an intimate friend of St. Louis, and he shared the feelings of his sovereign for the Mendicant Orders.
He always took great pleasure in reading the works of St. Bonaventure, and devoted to them all the spare time that the care of all the churches allowed him.
But while Clement admired the pages written by one whom he considered a great genius, and also the wisdom which Bonaventure displayed in the government of his Order, he resolved that so bright a light should not be left to occupy only a subordinate rank.
In 1265, the See of York became vacant by the death of Geoffrey de Kinton, and a difficulty having arisen about the nomination ofa successor, the Pope interfered.
He had been the Legate of the Holy See in England before his elevation
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to the pontificate, and he continued still to perform the functions of that office.
After he had cancelled the nomination of the Chapter of York, he sought a man for the vacant See, who should by his great works be capable of serving as a model to others, and who should be, in his position of chief pastor of that Catholic flock, a burning torch that should direct wandering souls to the port of salvation.
After long and mature deliberation Clement thought no one more fit than Bonaventure to carry out his desires; and he therefore nominated him to the See of York, by a Bull dated 8th December, 1265, in which, while praising the pious General of the Franciscans, the good Pope manifests the beauty of his soul, and, all unawares, speaks in his own praise.
" Under these circumstances," says the Sovereign Pontiff, "'we have unreservedly referred all our desires. to the Lord, and have commended to His will the care of this nomination, and trusting alone in the hope of His grace after consulting our brothers, and by their advice, we have turned our thoughts towards you, our longings are satisfied in you, and our spirit rests with firm resolution on you.
Indeed, when we
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find in your person the austerity of religion, the brightness of life, the innocence of manners, the sublimity of science, a careful circumspection, and a gravity of bearing ; when we consider how, for many years, you have governed your whole
Order, in such a praiseworthy manner, as Minister-General, fulfilling all your duties with fidelity, prudence, and care, for the greater advancement of the Order; when we consider how you have endeavoured without fail to lead a pure life under the observation of your Rule; how you have kept peace everywhere, and have won the love of all the world, we have a sure
'hope that we shall find in you all that we ardently desire for the good of the Church, and of the See of York, in which we are now interested, and of the kingdom itself.
This is why we, by our Apostolic authority, provide for the need of. this Church by your means, and appoint you to be its Pastor and Archbishop."
The Pope enclosed letters that were equally flattering, for Bonaventure to send to the Chapter, the Clergy, and the vassals of the Archdiocese of York.
In them he spoke in loving terms of the virtues of the new Archbishop,
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commanding them to render him honour, obedience, and respect, as a worthy shepherd of souls.
On reading this letter from Clement IV., the Saint was filled with consternation.
His first act, as after his election to the Generalship, was to prostrate himself before the Lord, and to beg
Him to-have pity on him in such a painful circumstance ; then, without losing a moment, he went and threw himself at the feet of His
Holiness and prayed him with tears not to remove him from the life of a Franciscan, to consider his weakness, and to spare him so crushing a burden.
Clement IV. had a compassionate heart, and the sweet voice and abundant tears of Bonaventure touched him, and he answered him in these words of Holy
Scripture: ''Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them ".*
These words of the Sovereign Pontiff sounded like music in the ears of the Saint, he rose up consoled, happy, and full of hope.
But these words after all were not prophetic, for death was * 20 itis
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171i not to find the good religious working humbly among his brethren ; another voice was to speak afterwards in firmer accents, and the interests of the Church were to compel his humility to yield to its supreme authority, and to cause him to resign himself without offering any excuse.
Bonaventure hoped that his example of selfrenunciation would have an advantageous influence over his Order, for since he had governed it he had often been distressed to see the brothers called by the Chapters and populations to high dignities in the Church, though the religious who were thus raised to the Episcopate had not anticipated such promotion. The honours to which they were destined had come to search them out among their humble duties, and their virtues lost none of their lustre by being removed to a wider sphere.
But Bonaventure feared to see ambition intruding its evil influence among his brethren, and he therefore besought Alexander
IV. to keep the Minor Friars as much as possible from the Episcopate, and he persuaded the Pope to decree that they should not be made
Bishops or Archbishops without the consent of their Superiors.
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Clement had tried to draw St. Thomas of Aquin also from his life in religion, and to raise him to similar honours by nominating him to the Archbishopric of Naples ; but, like his holy friend in the Order of St. Francis, he too had recourse to the Pope, and by his earnest supplications prevailed on him to leave him to pursue his chosen labours in peace.
While St.
Thomas, now happily delivered from the fear of unwelcome dignities, was building up his magnificent edifice of the Summary of Theology,
Bonaventure was travelling over the world in the ardour of his love.
He went through Italy to visit his brethren, and then he went to France, and gave all the houses of his Order an opportunity of seeing him and hearing his voice.
But beyond the Catholic countries, there were others which lay in the shadow of death, and where, though there might be here and there a few scattered worshippers of the Lord, His
Name was almost entirely unknown.
Francis and Dominic had contemplated these unhappy lands with bitter sadness, and it had been their noble ambition to bring them under the dominion of Christ.
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These missions, confided to the Seraphic Order, interested St. Bonaventure in the highest degree.
His ardent soul turned often to those distant regions, where his most devoted children were spending themselves in the midst of unheard-of labours, without terrestrial consolations, without human succour, always a prey to new tribulations, always exposed to fresh perils.
When he sent some new apostle to these unhappy people, he never saw him depart without envying him his fate, and regretting that the burden of the government heldhim back from labours he would have loved to share.
On their departure he would bless them with the greatest tenderness, imploring the favour of Heaven on their enterprise, and saying to them, like the old Tobias, ''May your journey be fortunate ; may God be with you on your way, and may
His angel go with you".
The Superior always rejoiced when any of his brothers expressed to him a desire to go and preach the Name of the Lord in heathen lands, but he was cautious in giving his consent to their designs; for he knew that a merely human thought can appear to the heart of man under a
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veil of piety, and that delusion is easy in regard to heroic actions, when their dangers are only seen from afar, surrounded with an aureole of glory, and the triumph of victories won.
He was therefore careful to examine the foundations of such vocations, and he urged all the Ministers of the Order to use great prudence on such occasions.
"The ministry of missions holds the chief rank, because it exposes those who embrace it to martyrdom, or to incessant hardship and fatigue; consequently Superiors should never impose this work on those under their care, as an obligation of obedience, but wait till they ask to be allowed to enter upon it.
When such a request is made, it is their duty to see whether the idea originated in natural impetuosity of character, in impatience of the yoke, and the thought of escaping from -discipline, or merely in a passing impulse of fervour.
Afterwards, they must consider whether these brothers who sigh for foreign missions have the requisite qualifications: whether they are robust in body, whether their faith is immovable, their virtues above proof, and their life quite blameless."
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Thus St. Bonaventure joined prudence to his zeal, and it guided him in all difficult questions.
The brothers who had been thus carefully chosen went forth to console the Church by exhibiting to the eyes of the heathen nations the most sublime virtues; they caused the name of Christian to be honoured even by its mortal enemies, and if their success did not always equal the desires of their hearts, or the harvest was less abundant than they had hoped, they were none the less, in the eyes of the Catholic world, true heroes, who had proved themselves worthy of the noble cause which they had been called to defend.
During the government of St. Bonaventure, the work of missions of the Order was largely extended.
In the year 1258, Franciscans were sent to no less than twenty-three infidel nations.
"Before the death of Brother Giles, who was the last of the twelve companions of St. Francis," says Gorres, " Alexander IV. could write to his well-beloved sons, the Brothers of the Order of Minors, in the countries of the Saracens, the Greeks, the Bulgarians, the Cumans, the Ethiopians, the Syrians, the Iberians, the Alanis, the
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Goths, the Jacobites, the Nubians, the Gregorians, the Armenians, the Indians, the Tartars, the Hungarians, and other nations of the East."
And this movement continued to grow from year to year, long after the time of St.
Bonaventure, as we find from the record of Barthelemi de Pisa, written a hundred and twenty-five years after the death of the Saint, in which are enumerated all the houses possessed by the Order, at that time, among heathen nations.
The Order of the Minor Friars had then seen eighty-seven of its members shed their blood for the Gospel in heathen lands, and its missionaries had penetrated to all parts of the world, from Maroc to the borders of the Euphrates, from Norway to the centre of China.
As to the results of these missions the same writer says: ''In the vast regions of Tartary, emperors and empresses, kings and queens, princes, and innumerable multitudes of their subjects, have received Baptism ; churches have been built, hospitals founded, and convents established.
In Georgia, the inhabitants have come to the light; the Armenians have sent envoys to the council of Florence; the Greeks
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have been brought there by Brother Albert of Sartiano, who also succeeded in persuading the Jacobites, and John, King of Abyssinia, to send ambassadors there."
If now we wish to complete this incomplete enumeration of their missionary works, we must advance to the discovery of the New World, and see the children of St. Francis crossing the ocean to win new victories there; for soon they were to be found in Mexico, and Peru, in Yucatan, Guatemala, in New Grenada, in Chili,
Nicaragua, Brazil, and the West Indies, in Paraguay, and amongst the most barbarous nations of the newly discovered world.
At their side the sons of St.
Dominic had their houses, their labours, and their martyrs, from the time that St. Francis and St. Dominic united together to achieve the conquest of the world, until the time when other apostles, sons of St. Ignatius of Loyola, came out to share their triumphs and tribulations, in this field of the Lord.
Centuries have rolled by since the time of St.
Francis of Assisi and St. Bonaventure ; but the Minor Friars are still to be seen in many of the
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countries which from the first they have occupied.
They still have missions in Moldavia, in Turkey, in Cephalonia, in Anatolia, in Syria at Jerusalem, in Mesopotamia at Agra, and in many provinces of China.
They are in Abyssinia, in Upper Egypt, in Tunis, and Tripoli, and in many other places.
Everywhere that they go they extend the knowledge and praise of the Lord, as in the ancient days; they convert souls, and console the Church, in her pier: age through the world.