St. Bonaventure

July 15 is the feast of St. Bonaventure (1221-1274), the Franciscan friar, Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, and Doctor of the Church. Born Giovanni di Fidanza at Bagnoregio, near Viterbo, he was cured of a childhood illness, by his mother's account, through the intercession of St. Francis, and entered the Franciscans at Paris in 1243. He taught at the University of Paris alongside Thomas Aquinas, and the two friars — one Franciscan, one Dominican — received the doctorate together in 1257.

As Minister General from 1257, Bonaventure reformed the Franciscan order, which had been divided by the dispute over the interpretation of Francis's poverty. His Life of St. Francis (1263) became the official biography of the founder, and his Journey of the Mind to God (1259), written at La Verna — the mountain where Francis received the stigmata — is the great Franciscan mystical text. He was created Cardinal Bishop of Albano in 1273 and presided over the Council of Lyon in 1274, where he died suddenly on the night of July 14-15.

Bonaventure was canonized in 1482 and proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1588, the "Seraphic Doctor." His body lies in the church of San Bonaventura at Lyon. From Paris, where he taught, to La Verna, where he wrote the Journey of the Mind, to Lyon, where he died, the July 15 feast is the feast of the second founder of the Franciscans.