St. Bonaventure's "Life of St. Francis of Assisi"

                         "The healing of the child St. Bonaventure by St. Francis"

Earlier this month, we celebrated the feast of St. Bonaventure, and have been examining St. Bonaventure's contributions to the Church throughout the month.  

In 1260 AD, a general chapter of the Franciscan order requested St. Bonaventure to compose a life of St. Francis, of which there were then many in circulation.  St. Bonaventure duly composed "The Life of St. Francis," which was approved by a subsequent chapter as the standard biography of the saint, to the exclusion of all others.  The following is taken from St. Bonaventure's "The Life of St. Francis:"

And when the Brethren in council asked of him which virtue would render a man most pleasing unto Christ, he answered, as though laying bare the secret thought of his heart, "Ye know, Brethren, that poverty is an especial way of salvation, being as it were the food of humility, and the root of perfection, and her fruits are manifold, albeit hidden. For poverty is that treasure hid in a field of the Gospel, which to buy a man would sell all that he hath, and the things that cannot be sold are to be despised in comparison therewith."