Saints Bonaventure and Leandro
MURILLO
1665

St. Bonaventure: July 15----St. Leandro: February 27

St. Bonaventure is one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Church, called the Seraphic Doctor. His life span on earth was from circa 1221-1274. Giovanni di Fidanza was born in Bagnorea, Italy, son of Giovanni di Fidanza and Maria la Ritella, and according to tradition, received the name Bonaventure from St. Francis of Assisi, who cured him of a childhood illness. He became a Franciscan between 1238 and 1243, studying at Paris under Alexander of Hales, whose disciple he became. He taught theology and Scripture at Paris, 1248-55. His teaching was interrupted because of the opposition of the secular professors to the new mendicants. He was involved in the controversy defending the mendicant orders against the attacks, headed by William of Saint-Armour and his book The Perils of the Last Times, and wrote Concerning the Poverty of Christ in refutation. In 1256 Pope Alexander IV denounced Saint-Armour and ordered the attackers of the mendicant orders to desist. When the mendicant orders were re-established at Paris, Bonaventure received his doctorate in theology, with Thomas Aquinas, in 1257. Earlier the same year Bonaventure had been elected minister general of the Friars Minor and labored to reconcile the dissident factions in the Order, pursuing a policy of moderation but condemning the policies of the extremist groups. At a general chapter of the Order at Narbonne in 1260, he promulgated a set of constitutions on the rule, which had a profound and lasting impact on the Order. He refused the archbishopric of York in 1265, and in 1271 he helped secure the election of Pope Gregory X. In 1273, he was appointed cardinal-bishop of Albano, and the following year Gregory appointed him to draw up the agenda for the fourteenth General Council at Lyons to discuss reunion of the Eastern churches with Rome. Bonaventure was a leading figure in the success of the Council that effected reunion, but he died at Lyons on July 15 while the Council was still in session. Bonaventure was an outstanding philosopher and theologian and one of the great minds of medieval times. Known as "the Seraphic Doctor," he wrote numerous treatises, and some five hundred sermons, and the official Franciscan biography of St. Francis. Bonaventure was canonized in 1482 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1588.

St. Leandro [Leander] lived between circa 534 and 600. Of a noble Hispanic-Roman family of Cartagena, Spain, and brother of SS. Fulgentius, Isidore, and Florentina, he was born at Cartagena and in 554 went to Seville when his family moved there. He became a monk there, fought Arianism in Spain, met St. Gregory the Great at Constantinople in 583 while on a diplomatic mission from King Leovigild to the Emperor, and on his return in about 584 was appointed bishop of Seville. He was banished by King Leovigild, who had executed his son Hermenegild for refusing Communion from an Arian bishop. While in exile Leandro wrote treatises against Arianism, was recalled by Leovigild who, on his deathbed, charged him with raising his son Reccared, who was his successor, in the Catholic faith. In the next few years Leandro converted many of the Arian bishops and brought most of the Visigoths and Spanish Suevi to the Catholic faith. He presided at the third council of Toledo in 589 at which Visigothic Spain abjured Arianism and added the Nicene Creed to the Mass. In 590, he held a synod at Seville that solidified the work of conversion. He was responsible for the reform of the Spanish liturgy and wrote a rule for nuns that is still extant. It was at his suggestion that St. Gregory wrote his treatise on Job, Moralia. Leander died at Seville on March 13 , but his Feast is February 27: not all Saints' Feasts fall on the date of their death as is the customary rule.

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