Episode Details

It's the Feast of St. Bonaventure, 3rd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: "The Difficulty of Obedience", today's news from the Church: "The Oblates and the Episcopal Consecrations", a preview of this week's episode of The SSPX Podcast: "Audiobook: Chapter 7: The Battle of Mortain", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org

Sources Used Today:

• "The Difficulty of Obedience" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption
  
  
• "The Oblates and the Episcopal Consecrations" (FSSPX.news)
  • https://fsspx.news/en/news/oblates-and-episcopal-consecrations-60030
  
  
• The SSPX Podcast: "Audiobook: Chapter 7: The Battle of Mortain" (SSPX Podcast)
  • View on YouTube
  • Listen & Subscribe on SSPXpodcast.com
  
  
• The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
  
  

Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook!

• Learn more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Wp4MQdK2o
• Donate:https://sspx.gifts/audiobook

Saint Bonaventure is sometimes called the "Seraphic Doctor," but if you had met him, you probably would have remembered him first for his humility.

He was born around 1221 in central Italy and given the name Giovanni di Fidanza. According to a long-standing tradition, he became seriously ill as a small child, and his mother brought him to Francis of Assisi, asking the saint to pray for him. After the boy recovered, Francis is said to have exclaimed, "O buona ventura!" "What good fortune!" Whether the story is exact history or a cherished tradition, it gave rise to the name by which the world would know him: Bonaventure.

As a young man, Bonaventure studied at the University of Paris, one of the greatest centers of learning in Europe. There he quickly gained a reputation as a brilliant theologian. Yet unlike some scholars who delighted in winning arguments, Bonaventure believed that learning should always lead a person closer to God. He once wrote that no amount of study could replace prayer and holiness.

His career could have been spent comfortably in the lecture hall.

Instead, he accepted one of the most difficult jobs in the Church.

The Franciscan Order had grown at an astonishing pace after the death of Saint Francis. Thousands of friars had entered, and disagreements were beginning to appear over how faithfully they should follow Francis's ideals of poverty and simplicity. At only thirty-five years old, Bonaventure was elected Minister General of the entire order.