Holiness of Life

Although written primarily for women living in Religion, St. Bonaventure's treatise on Holiness of Life (De Perfectione Vitæ ad Sorores) will strongly appeal to every Catholic heart. Its value as a manual of spiritual reading, at once elevating, inspiriting, and practical, can hardly be over-estimated.

It wins the soul to Christian humility and to an unworldliness which is the secret of a contented and joyful heart; it teaches a method of contemplation on the Passion of Our Lord, full of devout attractiveness; it reveals the secret of fruitful and heartfelt prayer. In a word it treats of the great and permanent things in spiritual life and practice, and does this with such living fervor that it sets our hearts on fire.

The treatise on Holiness of Life is written in an easy and familiar style. It is like a friendly talk. The mysticism is subdued; and there is not wanting, as in the section on silence, an element of keen observation and humorous sarcasm. As we read the wise, friendly, and fervent words we rejoice in an experience like that of the two disciples:

“Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in the way, and opened to us the Scriptures?" Luke xxiv, 32