9 26, July, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au FROM THE ARCHBISHOP Alejandro, Wellington and Nonie kneel as Archbishop Fisher prays over them during the Rite of Ad- mission to Candidacy. We ask for nothing less than the total gift of themselves in the ‘both-and’ way of Bonaventure. Following in the footsteps of the Master, who came to ‘serve and not be served’” Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP Teacher. When Aquinas asked which authors Bonaventure followed, he pointed to the crucifix and answered: “That’s the source of all I know: I study Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Yet, for all the efforts of hagiographers to make him into a simpleton Friar Tuck, the fact is that Bonaventure was one of the most brilliant men of his day, became Min- ister-General of the Francis- cans and a Cardinal, and is celebrated as a Doctor of the Church. He impressed all in the emerging universities and in- sisted – against the instincts of St Francis – that priests must have the books and education necessary to contend with the issues of the day …He would be as pleased by the library here at Redemptoris Mater Seminary as by this chapel! Indeed, where the suppos- edly more rationalistic Aqui- nas thought some things like the creation of the world and the three-personal God were beyond the human mind to discover for itself, Bonaven- ture thought he could prove these things by natural reason alone! Given that Our Lord says clearly in our Gospel tonight that the highest things are “hidden from the learned and the clever” and only revealed to “mere children” (Mt 11:25- 27), how is it that Bonaven- ture became a saint? Indeed, the entire Western intellectual enterprise, with its love for di- alectic or intellectual football matches, seems to have ig- nored the Lord on this. Identify two sides of some matter, pick your side, prove why yours is right and the other wrong – with multi- ple clever reasons if you’re a medieval, or with expletives and spin if you’re a post-mod- ern. Wouldn’t we do better to adopt the simple faith of children and old ladies, and forget all the classes and as- sessments at the University of Notre Dame Australia and the Catholic Institute of Sydney? Hold on: when Our Lord praises children as the recip- ients of revelation, He is not praising them for learning nothing at all – quite the op- posite. It was as a child that Thom- as Aquinas started asking theological questions and as a child that a near-death ex- perience set Bonaventure on course for the Franciscans. You don’t have to be a child, let alone a dummy, to be a mystic! But you do need the open-minded and heart- ed wonder of a child. And so when Bonaventure and Aqui- nas engaged in scholastic dis- putes, with videtur , s ed con- tra and respondeo , they were always courteous and gen- erous to the range of views, they willingly said sic et non , “both-and” rather than “ei- ther-or”, where the truth was not all on one side, and they followed the adage “seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish”. Bonaventure, like Aquinas, demonstrated that priestly life need not and should not be a matter of choosing sides be- tween faith and reason, struc- ture or freedom, hierarchy or people, God or creation, thinking or feeling, magiste- rium or conscience, propo- sitions or experience, Christ or the Holy Spirit, progress or tradition, pre-Lyons II and post-Lyons II. We might lean more to one dimension or another at par- ticular times or commonly. But we must be wary of po- larisation, lest like the Assyr- ians in our first reading, we attribute all knowledge and wisdom to ourselves (Is 10:5- 16). Ours must be a childlike openness to the whole of real- ity, to every human person, to the beautiful – if challenging – worlds to which they belong and to the God who is author and sustainer. Though Bonaventure was not as round a priest as Thomas, he was a more all- round priest, engaging not just in the preaching-teaching side of priesthood but also in sanctifying and governing. Head of the Franciscans from age 35, he contended with internal division and ex- ternal opposition. Like Fran- cis before him, he devoted himself to rebuilding God’s broken Church. While aca- demic absent-mindedness protected Aquinas from high- er office, Bonaventure only narrowly escaped appoint- ment as Archbishop of York, and then found himself pur- sued by two papal legates with a mandate creating him cardinal bishop and requiring him under religious obedi- ence to accept. According to legend Bonaventure was doing the washing up when the nun- cios finally caught up with him, and he told them to hang up the cardinal’s galero and pitch in with him. It’s a very Franciscan story: Aquinas, Contact us for more information on how you can watch EWTN EWTN is a non-profit organization supported entirely by donations Email:
[email protected] Mobile: 0451 679 561 Fax: (02) 9475 5080 Write: PO Box 2276 Tuggeranong ACT 2901 EWTN Highlights Preview www.ewtn.com TELEVISION • RADIO • NEWS • ONLINE • PUBLISHING Global Catholic Network Download the Free EWTN App on Google Play or App Store and start watching from your mobile devices or to any of these digital media players on your HD TV. Mother Angelica DAILY 10PM LIVE Sydney Time +Encore 8AM www.ewtn.com/asia-paci f i c THE CRUSADES 6:30 AM&5:30 PM JULY28 - JOURNEY’SOF FAITH JULY29 - THE CRUSADER ST TES JULY30 - CHRISTENDOMRESPONDS JULY31- FAILURES ANDSUCCESSES Find the career you deserve SEE OUR LATEST JOBS Call Katie (02) 9390 5402 catholicjobsonline.com. au like most of the Dominicans, wouldn’t have known where the sink was! But it is a story of the humility of a priest who, following our Gospel passage, had made himself as a child. Aquinas’ inconvenient death on the way to the Sec- ond Council of Lyons left Bonaventure to argue for church unity (which was briefly restored), the rele- vance of the friars (which was from now on respected) and the ongoing reform of the Church (a perennial need). He then promptly died himself, possibly from poi- soning. The Pope presid- ed at the funeral, with all the bishops, and a future pope preached. At that Council he had successfully resisted sim- plistic dichotomies between East or West, hierarch and prophet, theological free-spir- it and respecter of tradition, officeholder or charismat- ic, creative pastor or staid churchman. His priesthood united these many elements. Tonight Nonie, Luis and Wellington declare their will- ingness to serve Christ as His priest, picking Him and Him only as their side and stand- ing always by Him, but always with reverence for the whole, for all sides, all reality; always in charity, with a view to ulti- mate unity, to building up the holy People of God in holi- ness and truth. Tonight, these men resolve to complete their prepara- tion ‘to give faithful service to Christ the Lord and His body, the Church’. We ask for noth- ing less than the total gift of themselves in the ‘both-and’ way of Bonaventure. Follow- ing in the footsteps of the Master, who came to ‘serve and not be served’ (Mt 20:28), theirs will be a ministry of ser- vant leadership, with the gale- ro left hanging on a tree. They must be converted and recon- ciled, again and again. Dear brothers in Christ, such conversion and service to others comes at a cost. Christianity is full of wonder- ful paradoxes that bring to- gether life and death, death and rebirth, weakness and strength, service and author- ity, humility and exaltation, giving and receiving back. You now will bridge such things. Thank-you for the gener- osity of the gift of yourselves tonight to Christ the Priest and to His Church. Be ready to keep walking the Way with Christ to Jerusalem, to the Cross and Resurrection, whether it’s fromColombia, the Philippines or Brazil, via Sydney, to who knows where before heaven. Give yourselves now com- pletely to Him and know that you will receive back your lives graced abundantly. And to those of you further ad- vanced towards priesthood and those already ordained, thank you brothers for your lives of service. May God who began this great work in you all bring it to fulfilment. This is the edited text of the homily by Archbish- op Anthony Fisher OP for Mass for the Memoria of St. Bonaventure and Rite Of Candidacy at Redemptoris Mater Seminary, Chester Hill, 15 July 2020. Talk it over with the Archdiocesan Vocations Centre. Contact Fr Epeli Qimaqima on (02) 9307 8421 or via
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