Episode Details

Fr. Peter George Flynn opens with the burning love of St. Francis for Christ crucified, evidenced in the stigmata and in Bonaventure’s famous remark that all his wisdom came from study of the crucifix, and then works through St. Bonaventure’s Breviloquium on why Christ suffered.

He surveys the major theories of atonement the Church has received: the ancient Christus Victor image of Christ storming the underworld and defeating death; the patristic idea of recapitulation, in which Christ as the new Adam replays and reverses every moment of the fall, with Our Lady recapitulating Eve all the way down to the angel’s greeting; the ransom theory, which the Church rejected; St. Anselm’s satisfaction theory of infinite offense requiring an infinite redeemer; and Abelard’s moral example theory.

Bonaventure’s own synthesis is then presented, with Bonaventure insisting that Christ assumed genuine human suffering of body and soul. The episode closes with a guide to the plenary indulgences available through Good Friday, Holy Saturday and the Pope’s Urbi et Orbi blessing on Easter Sunday.

L'articolo The Franciscan Hour – Why Jesus had to Die: St. Bonaventure’s Theology of Atonement – Fr Peter George Flynn proviene da Radio Maria.