"
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SECTION III.--BONAVENTURA.
I will now briefly call your attention to the devotional works of the
celebrated Bonaventura. He is no ordinary man; and the circumstances
under which his works were commended to the world are indeed remarkable.
I know not how a Church can give the impress of its own name and
approval in a more full or unequivocal manner to the works of any human
being, than the Church of Rome has stamped her authority on the works of
this her saint.
In the "Acta Sanctorum", [Antwerp, 1723, July 14, p. 811-823.] it is
stated, that this celebrated man was born in 1221, and died in 1274. He
passed through all degrees of ecclesiastical dignities, {355} short only
of the pontifical throne itself. He was of the order of St. Francis, and
refused the archbishopric of York, when it was offered to him by Pope
Clement the Fourth, in 1265; whose successor, Gregory the Tenth,
elevated him to the dignity of cardinal bishop. His biographer expresses
his astonishment, that such a man's memory should have been so long
buried with his body; but adds, that the tardiness of his honours was
compensated by their splendour.
More than two centuries after his death, his claims to canonization were
urged upon Sixtus the Fourth; and that Pope raised him to the dignity of
saint; the diploma of his canonization bearing date 18 kalends of May,
1482, the eleventh year of that pope's reign.
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