“Brother Giles said, ‘Can a dull idiot love God as perfectly as a great scholar?’

St.

Bonaventure replied, ‘A poor old woman may love him more than the most learned master and doctor in theology.’ At this Brother Giles, in a sudden fervor and jubilation of spirit, went into a garden, and, standing at a gate toward the city (of Rome), he looked that way, and cried out with a loud voice, ‘Come, the poorest, most simple, and most illiterate old woman, love the Lord our God, and you may attain to an higher degree of eminence and happiness than Brother Bonaventure with all his learning.’ After this he fell into an ecstasy, in which he continued in sweet contemplation without motion for the space of three hours.”