Today we celebrate Saint Bonaventure, a thirteenth-century Franciscan friar, theologian, philosopher, and mystic. Born in Italy around 1217, he entered the Franciscan order and became one of its most influential leaders — eventually serving as Minister General and later as Cardinal and Bishop of Albano.
A contemporary of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure was equally brilliant but took a different approach: while Thomas emphasized reason, Bonaventure insisted that knowledge of God must begin in love. For him, theology wasn’t merely academic — it was personal, prayerful, and transformative. He taught that the soul must journey to God not only through study, but through humility, contemplation, and union with Christ crucified.
Saint Bonaventure reminds us that faith and reason are not enemies, but partners, and he challenges us to go beyond knowing about God to truly loving God with heart, soul, and mind. Through the intercession of Saint Bonaventure, may the people of God in the Diocese of Cheyenne grow in their knowledge of faith, and be led to a greater love of God and neighbor.
