The Memorial of Saint Bonaventure
Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation! I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. However, he doesn't mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.
For he has said, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding. I have removed the boundaries of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures. Like a valiant man I have brought down their rulers. My hand has found the riches of the peoples like a nest, and like one gathers eggs that are abandoned, I have gathered all the earth. There was no one who moved their wing, or that opened their mouth, or chirped."
Should an ax brag against him who chops with it? Should a saw exalt itself above him who saws with it? As if a rod should lift those who lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up someone who is not wood. Therefore the Lord, God of Armies, will send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire.
They break your people in pieces, Lord, And afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the alien, And murder the fatherless.
They say, "The Lord will not see, Neither will Jacob's God consider." Consider, you senseless among the people; You fools, when will you be wise?
He who implanted the ear, won't he hear? He who formed the eye, won't he see? He who disciplines the nations, won't he punish? He who teaches man knows.
For the Lord won't reject his people, Neither will he forsake his inheritance. For judgment will return to righteousness. All the upright in heart shall follow it.
At that time, Jesus answered, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in your sight. All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
Saint Bonaventure was a 13th-century Franciscan friar and theologian who became one of the Church's great mystical minds — someone who believed that true wisdom begins not in the library, but on the knees.
Which makes him exactly the right companion for these readings.
Notice how the thread running through everything today is the danger of mistaking our own cleverness for something it isn't. The Assyrian king in Isaiah is a vivid portrait of this trap — a man God actually uses as an instrument, who then turns around and takes full credit. "By the strength of my hand I have done it," he boasts. Consider how familiar that sounds. We accomplish something real, something good, and almost immediately the story we tell ourselves starts to shift. We move from gratitude to ownership. The ax begins to brag about the chopping.
The psalm pushes back hard: the One who formed the eye — can't that One see? The One who planted the ear — can't that One hear? There's a grounding logic here, almost like someone gently shaking us by the shoulders.
And then Jesus, in Matthew, offers the surprising reversal: the things hidden from the wise and learned are revealed to the little ones. This isn't anti-intellectual — Bonaventure himself was deeply learned. The movement here is from self-sufficiency to receptivity. The "infants" Jesus praises aren't ignorant; they're open. They haven't confused their understanding with control.
Bonaventure wrote that the soul rises to God through humility, not achievement. That's the practical invitation today — to hold our competence and our knowledge a little more loosely, to remember that whatever we're carrying well, we didn't build alone.
Something to sit with today:
Where do we take credit for what has actually been given to us? What would it feel like to hold our accomplishments as gifts rather than trophies? And what might become visible to us if we approached today with the openness of a beginner?