After leaving the Parisian chair, Bonaventura retires in meditation on Mount Verna, to embark on a contemplative itinerary that leads him to God. The first stage of this journey is the contemplation of the creatures. Bonaventure shows the reader the degrees of the ascent to God, degrees that man can know and travel through the prayer.

The physical world is described as a mirror and as a book through which it is possible to reach God: «He who is not brightened [illustratur] by such splendors of created things is blind; he who does not awake at such clamors is deaf; he who does not praise God on account of [ex] all these effects is mute; he who does not turn towards [advertit] the First Principle on account of such indications [indiciis] is stupid.»

https://inters.org/Bonaventure-God-Vestiges-Universe

The Rule of Saint Benedict (Regula Benedicti) is a book of precepts written by St. Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine Order and of the Monastery of Monte Cassino, and founder of monasticism in the Western Church. The work became the rule of conduct for all Western monks.

In Dante's Divine Comedy we meet St. Benedict in Sphere Seven in Paradiso, with the Contemplatives.

The spirit of St Benedict's Rule is summed up in the motto of the Benedictine Confederation: pax ("peace") and the traditional ora et labora ("pray and work").

The Rule of Saint Benedict (Regula Benedicti) is a book of precepts written by St. Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine Order and of the Monastery of Monte Cassino, and founder of monasticism in the Western Church. The work became the rule of conduct for all Western monks.

In Dante's Divine Comedy we meet St. Benedict in Sphere Seven in Paradiso, with the Contemplatives.

The spirit of St Benedict's Rule is summed up in the motto of the Benedictine Confederation: pax ("peace") and the traditional ora et labora ("pray and work").

"You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much.I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. . . ."

Saint Bernard's On Loving God is one of his most delightful, and most widely read, works. It stands in the tradition of the Fathers of the Church, but it carries patristic teaching into the Middle Ages and into the cloister. Its famous affirmation that God is to be loved without limit, sine modo, is taken directly from the letters of Saint Augustine. While the tract is not an example of scholastic theology, it shows a typically twelfth-century love of logic and an unexpectedly precise use of terminology. In reading or listening to this work, it is very important, as with all medieval authors, to take them on their own terms, without superimposing on them categories favored by later generations, even our own. Or especially not our own.(summary from wiki and the reader)

"You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much.I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. . . ."

Saint Bernard's On Loving God is one of his most delightful, and most widely read, works. It stands in the tradition of the Fathers of the Church, but it carries patristic teaching into the Middle Ages and into the cloister. Its famous affirmation that God is to be loved without limit, sine modo, is taken directly from the letters of Saint Augustine. While the tract is not an example of scholastic theology, it shows a typically twelfth-century love of logic and an unexpectedly precise use of terminology. In reading or listening to this work, it is very important, as with all medieval authors, to take them on their own terms, without superimposing on them categories favored by later generations, even our own. Or especially not our own.(summary from wiki and the reader)

To Eustathius.

All you who study medicine have, one may say, humanity for your profession: and I think that one who preferred your science to all the serious pursuits of life would form the proper judgment, and not miss the right decision, if it be true that life, the most valued of all things, is a thing to be shunned, and full of pain, if it may not be had with health, and health your art supplies. But in your own case the science is in a notable degree of double efficacy; you enlarge for yourself the bounds of its humanity, since you do not limit the benefit of your art to men's bodies, but take thought also for the cure of troubles of the mind.

01 On the Holy Trinity and of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit 

02 On "Not Three Gods"

03 On the Faith

The Confessions outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1,000 years, through the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40s, and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work (City of God). It does, nonetheless, provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. It begins:

"GREAT art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that Thou, O God, resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakes us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, unless it repose in Thee.”

The Confessions outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1,000 years, through the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40s, and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work (City of God). It does, nonetheless, provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. It begins:

"GREAT art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that Thou, O God, resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakes us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, unless it repose in Thee.”

The Confessions outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1,000 years, through the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40s, and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work (City of God). It does, nonetheless, provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. It begins:

"GREAT art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that Thou, O God, resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakes us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, unless it repose in Thee.”

The Confessions outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1,000 years, through the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40s, and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work (City of God). It does, nonetheless, provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. It begins:

"GREAT art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that Thou, O God, resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakes us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, unless it repose in Thee.”