Wednesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 15, 2020

The Feast Day of St. Bonaventure

I want to apologize for the many typographical errors in yesterday’s reflection.  I will try to be more attentive in the future.  I think I have corrected them all by now.

We have already looked at the Gospel reading for this day, which was used as the Gospel reading for a recent Sunday.  Let’s look instead at the Epistle reading in the 1962 Missal for the Feast of St. Bonaventure:

2 Timothy 4:1–8

I charge you, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming and his kingdom: Preach the word.  Be urgent in season and out of season. Reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. But be you vigilant, labor in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Be sober. For I am even now ready to be sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord the just Judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love his coming. Make haste to come to me quickly. 

St. Paul wrote two letters to his disciple Timothy, whom he had appointed bishop of the Christians in Ephesus, and in each he instructs him on how to tend the flock entrusted to him.  The second of the letters, from which this reading is taken, is the last of St. Paul’s letters to come down to us.  In this way, it represents a sort of last will and testament of the great Apostle.

In today’s text, Paul exhorts Timothy to preach, to be urgent, to reprove, entreat, and to rebuke, as he foresees a time when perseverance will wither and faith will wane and today’s believers begin to chafe at the Lord’s commands.  They will “not endure sound doctrine but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears”, that is, teachers who will tell the people what they want to hear so that they may win their praise.  These false teachers tailor their preaching to what is acceptable to the secular authorities and to the tastes of their hearers.  They do not forego bending the truth or lying about God and his commandments.  Their goal is to live a comfortable life here, one without complaints from others, one with easy popularity, even with those who hate God and his law.  The Church has always suffered from such bishops and priests, and continues to suffer from them today.  Fools that they are, many of them even consider that they are doing God’s will in this.  

But be you vigilant, labor in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Be sober.”  St. Paul here urges his disciple to keep watch lest error creep into the faith of his clergy, to labor in preaching and offering the sacraments, and to spread the Gospel among the Gentiles who made up most of the citizenry of the great city of Ephesus.  He calls upon Timothy to “be sober”, to live simply, chastely, and without luxury.  St. Bonaventure set an example for the medieval bishops, who often lived as feudal lords in large houses and in great luxury, as to how to do this.  This imitator of St. Francis was as singular at that time in this as he would be now.

We ought all of us to pray regularly for the holiness of our clergy.  The Lord Jesus will work with bent and broken instruments to save souls, but how many more he would save if the instruments were straight and beautiful!

The Collect Prayer from the 1962 Missal for the Feast of St. Bonaventure:

O God, Who gave to Your people, blessed Bonaventure, as a minister of salvation, grant, we beseech You, that we who cherished him on earth as a teacher of life, may be found worthy to have him as an intercessor in heaven.

Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

Amen.