Question was asking about intent of Bonaventure's theology and mysticism and also relating this to what Pope Francis does today. It's a bit unclear in a couple places as it was addressed to the instructor, which those points would be clear to him. I opted to leave it as it was.
Bonaventure, by embracing nature and poverty with evangelical zeal, opened up a different way to perceive and relate to the world so as to live a fuller life, finding deeper satisfaction. Following in the footsteps of St. Francis, this simplicity, with Christ on the bottom rung, as you put it in class, leads to a concern for the earth and all creation because Jesus embraced the lowest place in creation with enthusiasm and makes all things new. For Bonaventure, as well as Pope Francis, all things speak of the creator, points beyond itself, and therefore everything has a dignity which needs to be respected. When we respect the dignity in others and other things we can in turn have a better respect for ourselves, diminishing any tendency toward selfishness. When we recognize all is a gift from our loving God we see the equality in all and this causes a desire to reach out to care and protect what is around us. To be separated from creation, to see it as ‘over there’ is to be separated from a part of God who is all loving, self-diffusive Goodness. Any degree of separation is to take away what belongs to God and to take us away from God. Both Bonaventure and the Holy Father have worked tirelessly to do what will bring us towards the Good. In doing this they both have taken into account all the created world, and in the process, elevating us, showing us what is most delightful.
“In calling to mind the figure of Saint Francis (though he could just as easily be talking about Bonaventure),” Pope Francis writes in Laudato si (#218), “we come to realize that a healthy relationship with creation is one dimension of overall personal conversion, which entails the recognition of our errors, sins, faults, and failures, and leads us to heartfelt repentance and desire for change.” This communion with all of creation can help us to see our littleness and to order our desires toward God, allowing us to be the fullest we can be, to love so as to desire to participate in the life of Christ, remembering that both our source and destination is always God.
Pope Francis’ way of simplicity, reaching out to people and living a life steeped in Jesus from the Scriptures is very in line with Bonaventure’s theology/mysticism, very pastoral, as his was as well. Pulling from Saint Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, the Pope said in Lumen Fidei (#36), “Christian theology is born of a desire to better know the object of our love. The great medieval theologians rightly held that theology, as a science of faith, is a participation in God’s own knowledge of himself.” The word which God speaks about himself is a dialogue he allows us to enter into, tasting now some of the fullness of the joy that is to come.
Pope Francis, like Bonaventure, is affective in his outreach, more given to love than merely talking about it—he doesn’t suggest something others should do without doing it himself.
With both Bonaventure and Pope Francis all people, all things, all creation leads us to a loving communion with God so we may better experience and participate in Eternal Beauty now as well as in the life to come.
If you learn everything except Christ, you learn nothing; If you learn nothing except Christ, you learn everything - Saint Bonaventure
12 August 2015