Friday, March 22, 2024

Bonaventure for Lent XXXIII

 ...God, the supreme good, is above us; our soul, an intrinsic good, is within us; our neighbor, a kindred good, next to us; and our body, a lesser good, below us. Therefore the proper order of loving is to love God first, more than all else and for his own sake; our soul second, less than God but more than any temporal good; our neighbor third, as much as ourselves, as a good on the same level; our body fourth, less than our soul, as a good of lesser degree. It is here also we should place our neighbor's body that, like our own, is a lesser good than our soul.

[St. Bonaventure, Breviloquium (5.8.3), Monti, tr., Franciscan Institute Publications (St. Bonaventure, NY: 2005), pp. 201-202.]