Saint of the Day, July 15

Saint Bonaventure (1221–1274), Italian Franciscan, was the 'Seraphic Doctor' — a teacher at Paris alongside Thomas Aquinas and the second founder of the Franciscan Order, which he served as Minister General for sixteen years and whose constitutions he stabilized after the upheavals that followed the death of Saint Francis. His Itinerary of the Mind to God and Life of Saint Francis are classics of mystical theology, presenting all creation as a ladder of ascent to the Trinity. He died at the Council of Lyon in 1274, the same year as Aquinas, and is buried at Lyon.