Bringing Forth Christ : Five Feasts of the Child Jesus

by Bonaventure, Eric Doyle (Translator)

In these five meditations from the rich heritage of Franciscan spirituality, St Bonaventure, bishop, poet and Doctor of the Church, takes up the theme of spiritual motherhood, the mystical birth of God’s Word in the soul. We are invited to consider the place of Mary, Mother of the Lord and image of the Church, in our life of prayer, and to develop the maternal side of our nature.

Saint Bonaventure, or Bonaventura, (1217-74), Bishop and Doctor of the Church, was born Giovanni di Fidanza at Bagnoregio in Central Italy, and is said to have acquired the name Bonaventure (from the Italian ‘buona ventura’, meaning ‘good fortune’) when cured of a childhood illness. Bonaventure became a Franciscan at twenty-two, and received his doctorate in Paris, along with his close friend, Saint Thomas Aquinas. He was Minister General of his Order from the age of thirty-five until shortly before his death, restoring peace within the Order after a period of internal dissension. He became Cardinal-Bishop of Albano and was known as the ‘Seraphic Doctor’. His writings included ‘The Life of Saint Francis’ and ‘Five Feasts of the Child Jesus’. He died while attending the Second Council of Lyons.

35 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 10, 2014

About the author

Bonaventure (b. 1221 as John of Fidanza) was an Italian medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher, the eighth Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor. He was a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. He is known as the "Seraphic Doctor" (Latin: "Doctor Seraphicus"). Many writings believed in the Middle Ages to be his are now collected under the name Pseudo-Bonaventura.