Born in Bagnoregio, near Viterbo, in 1218, John Fidanza, the future St. Bonaventure, who would become a bishop, cardinal and doctor of the Church, was the son of a physician. He did not want to follow his father's path. According to a legend, the decisive factor would have been a meeting with St. Francis of Assisi who, as a child, would have cured him of a serious illness by marking his forehead with the cross and exclaiming, "Oh, good fortune!".
At the age of 18 he went to Paris, studied philosophy and theology, and entered the Order of Friars Minor. After teaching at the same university, he was elected Minister General of the Order in 1257. He governed it with prudence and wisdom, becoming a sort of second founder. Appointed bishop of the diocese of Albano and cardinal, he worked hard for the union of the Eastern and Western Churches at the Second Council of Lyon, where he died on July 15, 1274.
Seraphic Doctor
He bequeathed numerous theological and philosophical, spiritual and mystical works, which earned him the title of Seraphic Doctorfor his ardent love of God. His 'Legenda maior', the official biography of St. Francis, from which Giotto drew his inspiration, has been important in Franciscan history.
In 1588 Pope Sixtus V placed him among the Doctors of the Church - six at that time - together with St. Thomas Aquinas, distinguishing St. Bonaventure as Seraphic Doctor and St. Thomas as Angelic Doctor.
Among its contributionsAccording to the Vatican agency, the need to subordinate philosophy to theology can be emphasized, following the thought of St. Augustine, according to the Vatican agency. And the elaboration of his Trinitarian theology. He was canonized in 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV.
Germanic, Portuguese, Vietnamese Martyrs
The liturgy also celebrates on this day, among others, St. Ansuerus and 29 monks of the Benedictine community of St. Georgenberg, near Ratzenburg (Germany). They were stoned to death by a tribe of the Vendos, pagans, who rebelled against the monks' work of evangelization.
The Portuguese Blessed Ignatius of Azevedo and 39 Jesuit martyrs, killed in 1570 while on their way to Brazil on missionary work, are also commemorated. The Vietnamese saints Peter Nguyen Ba Tuan and Andrew Nguyen Kim Thong Nam, persecuted for evangelizing. And to St. Vladimir the Great or of Kiev (present-day Ukraine), who died in 1015.
