St Bonaventure's masterly work of mystical theology, The Soul's Journey Into God, gives a beautifully simple picture of the end of that journey. In his seventh and final chapter, he draws heavily on Pseudo-Dionysius but also includes some vivid images of his own. He compares his six 'considerations' which lead to the end of this journey with the six steps up to Solomon's throne, with the six wings of the Seraph of Fancis' ecstatic vision, and with the six days of creation leading to their completion in a day of perfect rest. This rest is nothing other than 'a peaceful mind', a non-activity that is a sublime 'passing over into God in ecstatic contemplation'. This peaceful mind is a leaving behind of the things of the senses and an entering into a luminous darkness which is a paradise.
This state is not 'attained' through effort. Bonaventure stands squarely in the Christian mystical tradition in this regard: 'Nature can do nothing and effort can do but little, little importance should be given to inquiry, but much to unction; little importance should be given to the tongue, but much to inner joy; little importance should be given to words and writing but all to the gift of God'. The way of contemplation is a way to a peaceful mind, but it is not a way of achievement so much as of letting go. This peaceful mind is our created natural state, our promised paradise, and all that must be done to recover it is to shed those things that obscure it, following the pattern of the one who 'emptied himself'.
Bonaventure's distinctively Franciscan flavour is seen in his reference to 'inner joy'. The way to a peaceful mind is not a way of earnest labour but of simplicity and joy. Of course, we should not imagine that simplicity is painless - it requires a shedding of some superficialities that we might once have cherished and considered important. And often the way to a peaceful mind includes an awareness of what is not peaceful within us. But the way is marked above all by joy, by freedom and by peace.
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