Lignum vitae
Bonaventure (1217–1274)
Bonaventure's Lignum vitae (Tree of Life): forty-eight meditations on the life, passion, and glorification of Christ, ordered as twelve fruits on a mystical tree, with a closing prayer for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Latin: Quaracchi critical text; English: new ScholaThomistica translation.
Prologue
Fructus I: Fruit I. The Glory of His Origin.
Fructus II: Fruit II. Humility in His Way of Life.
Fructus III: Fruit III. Sublimity of Virtue.
Jesus, baptized from heaven.
- When the Savior had reached the thirtieth year of his age, wishing to work our salvation, he began first to do rather than to teach; and beginning first from the door of the Sacraments and the foundation of the virtues, he willed to be baptized by John, to show the example of perfect justice and "to bestow regenerative power upon the waters by contact with his most pure flesh."
Whom do you also faithfully accompany, and now regenerated in him, search out his mysteries, that "beside the Jordan you may see the Father in the voice, the Son in the flesh, the Holy Spirit in the dove, and with the heaven of the Trinity opened to you," you may be raised up to God.
Jesus, tempted by the enemy.
- For Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil, that by humble endurance of the hostile battle he might make us humble and by the attainment of life make us strong. He also steadfastly took up a hard and solitary life, to raise the minds of the faithful to the undertaking of perfection and to strengthen them to bear hard things.
Come now, disciple of Christ, seek out with the loving master the hidden places of solitude, that made a companion of the wild beasts, an imitator and partaker of hidden silence, devout prayer, long fasting, and the teaching of conflict with the cunning enemy, and in every trial of temptations you may learn to have a safe recourse, because we have not a high priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin.
Jesus, wondrous in signs.
- For he it is who alone doth great wonders, while he changes the elements, multiplies loaves, treads the waves and calms them, commands demons and puts them to flight, heals the sick, cleanses lepers and raises the dead, who also restores to the blind sight, to the deaf hearing, to the dumb speech, to the lame walking, and to the paralyzed and the withered both sense and movement.
To him the sinful conscience now cries in the manner of the faithful leper: "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean;" now in the manner of the centurion: "Lord, my boy lieth at home sick of the palsy, and is grievously tormented;" now in the manner of the Chanaanite woman: "Have mercy on me, son of David;" now in the manner of the woman with the issue of blood: "If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed;" now after the manner of Martha: "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick."
Jesus, transfigured.
- To strengthen the human mind through hope of eternal retribution, Jesus took apart Peter, James and John onto a high mountain, to whom he both opened the mystery of the Trinity and foretold the abjection of the Passion and showed in the Transfiguration the future glory of the resurrection, with the Law and the Prophets bearing him witness in the appearing of Moses and Elias, with the Father and the Holy Spirit also bearing witness in the voice and in the cloud, so that the soul devoted to Christ and now established in truth and raised to the height of virtue may faithfully say with Peter: "Lord, it is good for us to be here," that is, in the serene enjoyment of thy contemplation, and, with heavenly sleep and ecstasy sent upon it, may hear secret words which it is not granted to man to utter.