(Vatican Radio) To mark the day the Church remembers Bonaventure on July 15th,
Veronica Scarisbrick shines the spotlight on this Saint from the Middle Ages. A
theologian, identified by the Abbot of Heiligenkreuz Maximilian Heim, as he addressed
Benedict XVI on reception of the 'Ratzinger Prize 2011', in these terms: " ..the second
great teacher who influenced you Holy Father, especially in your approach to theology
, is Saint Bonaventure. His work presents us with a remarkable combination of scholarly
method, spiritual ardour, a struggle for comprehension and pastoral zeal ...". Bonaventure
then, a figure familiar and dear to Benedict XVI who in 2009 visited the city of
his birth, Bagnoregio. One also familiar to theologians such as Abbot Heim ,
but perhaps not to all of us. In an effort to redress this trend Veronica Scarisbrick
asks Father Rick Martignetti of the Order of Friars Minor, author of 'Bonaventure's
Tree of Life', to introduce us to him , he tells us how : " For Bonaventure the way
to wisdom is through holiness. Sometimes in our modern days we think we can do theology
as only an intellectual exercise, that it can be something separate from our relationship
with God. And for Bonaventure that would have been a completely foreign concept. You
can't learn about God intellectually unless you experience God in your heart." Listen
to this programme which begins with a couple of unusual quotes from Joseph Ratzinger's
early memoirs in which he writes : "..since I had done work on Augustine it seemed
natural to me to work on Bonaventure...." Listen: