SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE

St Bonaventure Receiving Communion from the Hands of an Angel
Herrera the Elder, 1628
Musée du Louvre, Paris

In offering counsel to a Poor Clare nun on how to make progress in the spiritual life, Bonaventure writes movingly and beautifully:

Since fervour of devotion is nourished and preserved in us by a frequent return of our thoughts to the passion of Christ, anyone who wishes to keep the flame of ardour alive within himself should frequently — or rather, incessantly — contemplate in his heart Christ dying upon the cross. That is why the Lord said of old: The fire on the altar is to be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest shall put firewood on it.

Listen, devout Mother: your heart is the altar of God. It is here that the fire of intense love must burn always. You are to feed it every day with the wood of the cross of Christ and the commemoration of His passion. The prophet Isaias says (12:3): You shall draw waters with joy out of the Saviour’s fountains; meaning that whoever wishes to obtain from God the waters of grace, the waters of devotion, the waters of tears, must draw from the fountains which are the five wounds of Christ.

Therefore, let your love lead your steps to Jesus wounded, to Jesus crowned with thorns, to Jesus fastened upon the gibbet of the cross. Not only see in His hands the print of the nails, with the apostle Thomas, not only put your finger into the place of the nails, not only put your hand into His side, but enter with your whole being through the door of His side into Jesus’ heart itself. There, transformed into Christ by your burning love for the Crucified, pierced by the nails of the fear of God, wounded by the spear of superabounding love, transfixed by the sword of intimate compassion, seek nothing, desire nothing, wish for no consolation, other than to be able to die with Christ on the cross. Then you may cry out with the Apostle Paul: With Christ, I am nailed to the cross. It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me.