JALAN SPIRITUAL MENUJU ALLAH: SEBUAH URAIAN TENTANG ITINERARIUM MENTIS IN DEUM, KARANGAN BONAVENTURA

Abstract

In this article about St. Bonaventure’s treatise “The soul’s journey into God” (Itinerarium mentis in Deum), the author offers an introduction to the seraphic doctor’s famous work on mystic theology, paying special attention to the via illuminativa, the itinerary’s subject. Bonaventure takes his starting point in St. Francis’ vision of the six- winged Seraph in the form of the Crucified, which left the marks of Christ passion in his hands, feet and side. The symbolic interpretation of Francis’vision becomes for
Bonaventure the framework of his treatise, with the first six chapters tracing the stages of the journey and the seventh describing the goal of ecstatic rapture. The soul progresses along this journey by contemplating first God’s reflection in the universe or material world and in the sensations or sense world (vestigia Dei in chapter I and II). The soul then turns within itself to contemplate God’s reflection in the natural powers
of the soul and in these same faculties reformed by grace (the soul as imago Dei in chapter III and IV). In order to climb up to the top, the soul turns to God himself and contemplates him as Being and the Good (lumen Dei, God’s light which sustains, illuminates and penetrates everything - chapter V and VI). From there the soul passes over into the final stage of mystical ecstasy (chapter VII). Behind the entire treatise
stands Bonaventure’s theological vision, which is based on the doctrine of the Trinity as the mystery of the self-diffusion of the Good.