11 September – Blessed Bonaventure of Barcelona OFM

[Weedy]

 11 September – Blessed Bonaventure of Barcelona OFM
Also known as Bonaventure of Riudoms, Bonaventura Gran
Fra Bonaventure of Barcelona
Miguel Baptista Gran Peris

Memorials
11 September
24 November (Riudoms, Spain)

 Franciscan Friar, Reformer, Papal Adviser, Founder of Retreat houses
Born on 24 November 1620 on Carrer de la Butxaca (Pocket Street) in
Riudoms, Tarragona, Catalonia (in modern Spain) as Miguel Baptista
Gran Peris (the street where he was born has been re-named in his
honour) and died on 11 September 1684 at the friary of Saint
Bonaventure on the Palantine Hill in Rome, Italy of natural causes.
Patronage – Riudoms, Spain.

He was born in Riudoms, Catalonia, on 24 November 1620 in a modest
house in the street known as Pocket Street and now has his name. After
marrying at the age of 18 as his father wished, he was widowed in a
few months. He entered the Franciscan convent of Sant Miquel
d’Escornalbou and made religious profession on 14 July 1641, changing
his name to Bonaventura. In the following years, he was sent to Mora
d’Ebre, Figueres, la Bisbal d’Empordà and Terrassa, where another
street has been named for him.

In 1658 he was sent to Rome where he founded Santo Retiro are four
monasteries in the province of Rome, including San Bonaventura al
Palatino. He was an adviser to four popes – Alexander VII, Clement IX,
Clement X and Innocent XI. In Rome in 1662 he founded the Riformella,
a reform movement within the Reformed Order of Friars Minor of the
Strict Observance, so the monks and Franciscan priests who dedicated
themselves to the apostolate could gather in meditation and spiritual
retreat, living the founding spirit of the Franciscan order.

In 1679, he sent from Rome the relics of Saint Boniface, Saint Julian
and Saint Vincent. Since then, the second Sunday of May is celebrated
in Riudoms as the Feast of the Holy Relics.

In 1775 he was declared venerable and in 1906 he was beatified by the
Pope Pius X, after the verification of two miraculous healings. The
first one in 1790 when a woman was in a serious condition after
falling from the horse and was inexplicably cured after having invoked
him. The other, in 1818 in which another woman remained unconscious
for three days after childbirth and was cured instantaneously after
applying a relic of Bonaventura.

In Riudoms, his remains have been preserved since 1972, when they were
moved from Rome. They are currently in the tabernacle chapel in the
church of Saint James the Apostle. In Riudoms, there is a great
devotion to Blessed Bonaventura and a feast in his honour is
celebrated every 24 November the day he honoured Riudoms by his birth,
where his remains are taken in procession through the village.
By Anastpaul

Saint Quote
Perfection consists in one thing alone, which is doing the will of
God. For, according to Our Lord's words, it suffices for perfection to
deny self, to take up the cross and to follow Him.
--St. Vincent de Paul

Bible Quote:
For which cause I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God
which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. For God hath not
given us the spirit of fear: but of power and of love and of sobriety.
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me
his prisoner: but labour with the gospel, according to the power of
God. .--St. Paul in his second letter to Timothy (2 Tim 1:6-8)  DRB


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Hymn from Corpus Christi.

Jesus! my Lord, my God, my All! How can I love Thee as I ought?
And how revere this wondrous gift, So far surpassing hope or thought?

Had I but Mary's sinless heart To love Thee with, my dearest King!
O, with what bursts of fervent praise Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing!
Sweet Sacrament! We Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more!

F. Faber: Corpus Christi. (19th cent.)