Friday, July 15, 2016

Seraphic Doctor

Today is the Feast of St. Giovanni di Fidanza, better known by his nickname of Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church.

...God, the supreme good, is above us; our soul, an intrinsic good, is within us; our neighbor, a kindred good, next to us; and our body, a lesser good, below us. Therefore, the proper order of loving is to love God first, more than all else and for his own sake; our soul second, less than God but more than any temporal good; our neighbor third, as much as ourselves, as a good on the same level; our body fourth, less than our soul, as a good of lesser degree. It is here also we should place our neighbor's body that, like our own, is a lesser good than our soul.
[Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Monti, tr., The Franciscan Institution (St. Bonaventure, NY: 2005), pp. 201-202.]