David B. Couturier, OFM. Cap., book review of Bruce Epperly, Head, Heart, and Hands: An Introduction to Saint Bonaventure (Franciscan Media, 2024).
Teaching the theology of St. Bonaventure to undergraduates is quite the challenge. Trying to make sense of Bonaventure’s principles of emanation, exemplarity, and illumination doesn’t come easily for a generation grounded in what cultural historian James Davison Hunter calls “the cultural logics of nihilism.” Bonaventure’s starting point of an absolute and ever-diffusive divine goodness startles and confuses students brought up on themes of epistemological failure, ethical incoherence, existential despair, and political annihilation of anything contrary to individual desires.
Over the years I have had many professors who taught Bonaventure’s theology. Most of them taught it as a cluster of good thoughts, quite abstract but not very practical. It was as if Bonaventure went up Mount La Verna for his mystical experience and never came down back to earth. We know he did. He took the reins after all of a fast growing and highly fractious community of friars and did quite well for 17 years.
This is all prelude to promoting Bruce Epperly’s new book, Head, Heart, and Hands: An Introduction to St. Bonaventure (Franciscan Media, 2024). It is a good read. Epperly presents Bonaventure in simple and available language without damage to Bonaventure’s reputation for being a complex thinker and a lover of symbols and numbers. The Chapter titles give the hint of Epperly’s pastoral intent: The Life of St. Bonaventure: Loving God with Heart and Mind (Chapter 1), Bonaventure and Francis: Disciple and Master (Chapter 2), The Center is Everywhere: God and the World (Chapter 3), The Crucified Christ: Walking with the Cross Simply and Sacrificially (Chapter 4), Bonaventure’s Mystical Journey (Chapter 5), Ethics in the Spirit of St. Bonaventure (Chapter 6), Bonaventure for the Twenty-First Century (Chapter 7).
Every chapter ends with a brief section called “Praying with St. Bonaventure.” And then, Epperly provides “Questions for Reflection,” any one of which could be used for personal reflection or group discussion. There are usually four or five questions after each chapter.
Franciscan theologian and Bonaventure scholar Ilia Delio, OSF, provides a positive review of the book as well: “Dr. Bruce Epperly captures the essential Bonaventure here in a beautiful narrative, a theology of everyday life that is at once faithful to the Franciscan’s rich insights, yet deeply practical. This is a wonderful book that illuminates Bonaventure’s thought in and profound ways, inviting us into the heart of God wherever we find ourselves in the world.”
Bonaventure believed that God was a fountain-fullness spilling and oozing out love and light into everything and everyone, an inexhaustible stream of goodness and generosity. Every theologian or teacher deserves to teach their students how really good God is and Bonaventure shows us how, thanks to Bruce Epperly.
Get the book here.
