S. Bonaventure:

The Triple Way, or Love Enkindled.

I. Meditation:

Leads to the wisdom of SS. Meditate only on these things; this is the end of every thought and deed:

1. Acts of humans, what they should do and why;

2. Acts of God: how much God has entrusted, forgiven, and promised; Creation / reparation / glorification

3. Principles of both: God and the soul, the union to be achieved between them.

A. Purgation: Sting of Conscience - when clean, is joyful and glad

1. Arouse: remember sin

a. Negligence

1). Guard heart / good use of time / right purpose

2). Prayer / reading / good works

3). Penance / resisting evil / making progress

b. Concupiscence

1). Uncontrolled desire for: sweetness / softness / carnality

2). Curiosity: occult knowledge / pleases eye / costly treasure

3). Vanity: favor / praise / honor

c. Malice

1). Anger: thought / sign / word

2). Envy: grieve over success / rejoice at misfortune / indifferent at misery

3). Acrimony: suspicion / blasphemy / detractions

2. Sharpen: consider human condition

a. Hour of death: unpredictable / inevitable / final

b. Blood of the Cross: quicken / cleanse / soften;

1). remove uncleanliness / change death to life / bestow fruitfulness

c. Face of the Judge: infallible / inexorable / inescapable

3. Direct: meditate on the good.

a. Alacrity: against negligence

1). spiritual vigor, promtness: watchful / trustful / careful godly action

b. Austerity: against concupiscence

1). spiritual rigor, love of: hardship / poverty / lowliness

c. Benignity: against malice.

1). spiritual taste: kindness / tolerance / internal joy

B. Illumination: Beam of Intelligence

1. Hold it aloft: guilt remitted. Thankfulness.

2. Broaden its scope: favors received

a. Perfection of nature: body / senses / soul

b. Assistence of grace: baptism / repentence / priesthood

c. Superabundance: universe / the Son / the Holy Spirit

3. Turn it back: promised rewards: removal of evil / company of St.s / fulfillment of desires

C. Union: Flame of Wisdom

1. Concentrated: turned from love of creatures

2. Fed: love in ref. to us, heaven, the Spouse; through love is given: what we lack / all good to the blessed / the presence of the Spouse

3. Raised aloft - above perceptions, imagination, conceptions- He is all delight.

II. Prayer

A. Deplore our misery: guilt incurred / grace wasted / glory lost

1. Sorrow for damage - recall of past: omit justice / commit forbidden / loss of grace

2. Shame for disgrace - consider present: in the abyss / in mire / slave

3. Fear for guilt - anticipate future: headed to netherworld / what it due / what it will receive

B. Implore God's mercy - three conditions must be fulfilled:

1. Desire - generated by the Holy Spirit

2. Hope - given by Christ who died for us, and appears before the Father on our behalf

3. Search for help - we expect from the Saints, angels and the just

C. Worship God

1. Reverence and adoration - heart must bow before God

a. Father: formed / reformed / informed us

b. Lord: rescued us from the enemy / redeemed us from hell / led us to His vineyard

c. Judge before whom we are: accused by conscience / convicted by our life / exposed by light of divine wisdom

1). bow: subjection - little/ genuflection: dejection - least / prostration: abjection - nothing

2. Love and gratitude - heart must open up - consider God's bounty and your unworthiness

a. Strongly: our unworthiness / more strongly: abundance of God's grace / most strongly: immensity of God's mercy

b. Sins committed / sins remitted / what is promised

c. Perfecting of nature / clothing of grace / superabundance

d. Heart expanded / opened up / poured out

3. Mutual delight and converse - heart rises aloft - contemplate God's charity and your lukewarmness

a. Happy to find delight in God alone - gratuitous - the world is crucified to man

b. Happy to please none but God - man is crucified to the world

c. Happy for others to share this joy with us - man is crucified on behalf of the world

1). Gratuitous love / love that is due / both combined

4. Six Steps of the Love of God

a. Sweetness

b. Hunger & Thirst

c. Fullness

d. Inebriation

e. Security

f. Tranquillity

III. Contemplation

A. Purgation - Tranquility of Peace

1. Shame: sins committed - gravity / no. / baseness / ingratitude

2. Fear: judgement - dissipation of grace / blinding of reason / hardening of will / final condemnation

3. Sorrow: damage - reject God's friendship / loss of innocence / wounding of nature / waste of past life

4. Insistence: cry for help - Father / Christ redeemer / Virgin Mother / Church Triumphant

5. Resoluteness: extinguish vice - aridity+sloth / perversity+malice / pleasure+concupiscence / vanity+ pride

6. Ardor: desire for martyrdom - perfect: remission of sin / cleansing of blemishes / fulfillment of penalty /sanctification in grace

7. Quiet: repose in the shade of Christ

B. Illumination - Splendor of Truth

1. Assent of reason: Who is suffering / submit / believe in Him

2. Movement of Compassion: how good He is / unite yourself to Him / share His pains

3. Gaze of admiration: how great He is - power / beauty / happiness / infinity

4. Rapture of devotion: why He is suffering - for your redemption / illumination / sanctification / glorification

5. Put on Christ: how He is suffering - be kind to neighbor / severe to yourself / humble before God / shrewd against the Devil

6. Embrace the Cross: how much He is suffering - desire suffering: abasement / insult / derision / pain

7. Behold the Light of Truth - scroll of 7 seals opened:

a. Admirable God: Wisdom of the Cross

b. Rational Spirit: benevolence of angels / worth of man / cruelty of demons

1). Sensible world - place where reigns: blindess / sterility / evil

c. Delightful heaven: God reverses our fate, taking our place - summit of glory / expression of joy / treasury of wealth

d. Frightful hell: want / vileness /shame / disaster / misery

e. Praiseworthiness of virture: precious, Christ's sacrifice / beautiful, virtue shining in Christ's disgrace / fruitful, Christ's act of virtue despoiled hell, opened heaven, and renewed the earth

f. Guilt of sin: its price / compensation / painful cure

C. Perfective Union - Sweetness of Love

1. Watchfulness: since the Spouse is at hand

2. Trust: must be your comfort, since the Spouse is faithful

3. Desire: must inflame you, since the Spouse is sweet

4. Rapture: must uplift you, since the Spouse is lofty

5. Peace: which delight brings, since the Spouse is beautiful

6. Happiness: be filled, since the Spouse is rich

7. Intimacy: must weld you to Him, since the love of the Spouse is strong

D. Nine progressive steps

1. Sorrow: weighing the evils we have deserved / recalling Christ's pains / trying to secure remedy for sufferings we inflicted on neighbors

2. Gratitude: admiration for the gift of creation / disregard for our own merits in being redeemed / thankfulness for deliverance from hell

3. Awareness rising to a hymn of thanksgiving for graces

4. Joy rising to jubilation for the value of the gifts

5. Delight culminates in an embrace because of the Giver's bounty

* Conformity: rise above self in vision of truth / movement of love outward by surveying the world / manly act of courage inward

6. Intuition of Truth: high - God the incomprehensible / broad - God the intelligible / pure - God the object of Faith

7. Love: high facing God / broad facing neighbor / pure facing the world

8. Courage: high facing good deeds / broad facing spreading of truth / pure facing contemptible things