May 8, 2024

Hello John,

Meditation from Head, Heart, and Hands:

[For Bonaventure] the divine center is everywhere: spiritually, spatially, and experientially. Omnipresent, God is within all things and present in each moment of experience as the source of life, movement, and energy. At this moment, even though you may be unaware of it, God is sustaining and inspiring you. Like the air we breathe, God moves within your soul and your cells. As the angels chant to the prophet Isaiah, “the whole earth is full of [God’s] glory”(Isaiah 6:3).

How easy it is for me to slip into autopilot as I wake and dive into the day’s to-do list. I open my eyes most days and am almost immediately bombarded by my own thoughts and demands. Might we, together, pause and breathe for a moment? Bonaventure wrote that “God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” In other words, God is both immense and immediate to us, closer to us than the intimacy of our own breath. God’s center is everywhere.

In this very moment, however busy of a day we might have ahead, we are being loved into existence. Bonaventure believed that the fountain of the Trinity flows through us and into our lives. Even our most menial tasks can be divine.

I hope you enjoy Head, Heart, and Handsas we become aware of divine depth and beauty throughout our day today.

Blessings, 

Stephen Copeland

Book Editor, Franciscan Media

Saint of the Day for May 8: Peter of Tarentaise

(1102 – 1174)

Saint Peter of Tarentaise’s Story

There are two men named Saint Peter of Tarentaise who lived one century apart. The man we honor today is the elder Peter, born in France in the early part of the 12th century. The other man with the same name became Pope Innocent the Fifth.

The Peter we’re focusing on today became a Cistercian monk and eventually served as abbot. In 1142, he was named archbishop of Tarentaise, replacing a bishop who had been deposed because of corruption. Peter tackled his new assignment with vigor. He brought reform into his diocese, replaced lax clergy, and reached out to the poor. He visited all parts of his mountainous diocese on a regular basis.

After about a decade as bishop, Peter “disappeared” for a year and lived quietly as a lay brother at an abbey in Switzerland. When he was found out, the reluctant bishop was persuaded to return to his post. He again focused many of his energies on the poor.

Peter died in 1174 on his way home from an unsuccessful papal assignment to reconcile the kings of France and England. His liturgical feast is celebrated on September 14.

Reflection

We probably know a lot of people who would welcome the chance to receive some honor or honorary position. They relish the thought of the glamour and glory. But saints like Peter of Tarentaise remind us that humility and the avoidance of glory is the way of the Gospel.

"The life and legacy of Francis taught Bonaventure to praise God in all creatures and see holiness in the poor and forgotten as well as the privileged and powerful."

—from Head, Heart, and Hands: An Introduction to Saint Bonaventure.

Of all the titles and epithets of Mary, the ones that make her most human and real to us are those relating to her motherhood… There is something about a nourishing love that was central to the spirituality of St. Francis. He used to say to his Brothers that they were to love one another, as far as grace enables them to do so, the way a mother loves and nourishes the child of her flesh.

And for St. Francis Mary was the mother because of the way she loved and nourished Jesus (cf. St. Francis, Rule of 1221, Chapter IX).

— from the book Nourishing Love: A Franciscan Celebration of Mary
by Murray Bodo, OFM

Embrace the inspiring spiritual life of Saint Bonaventure that still resonates today!

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