St. Bonaventure has been a saint that I’ve admired for a long time. I went to St. Bonaventure University, and I was baptized at a parish named after him as well.

But it’s only within the last few years that I’ve come to appreciate, respect, and pray with the Seraphic Doctor on a more profound level. While July 15 has always been a special day for me and for Franciscans the world over, reflecting on Bonaventure recently has been particularly meaningful.

We live in a very fractious world. It’s not hard to look around us and be discouraged by the seemingly irreconcilable tensions, the lack of constructive dialogue, the outright violence (both in word and in deed) that is wrought in our society. The Church, too, seems to be divided into warring camps over politics, the liturgy, and our very identity.

It’s perhaps helpful to remind ourselves that these dynamics