The first chapter of The Journey of the Soul into God introduces the

reader to a way of reflecting on the mystery of the created order.

Here the experience of St. Francis interacts with the theological
and philosophical reflection of Bonaventure in a fascinating way.
We are concerned above all with the sense of the familial unity of
the entire created order that appears in the life of St. Francis, and
with the way in which Bonaventure reflects on this in terms of
theology and spirituality.
It is very obvious that this view of the material universe differs
greatly from that of the medieval vision of Catharism, with
its conviction that material reality is fundamentally evil. But
beyond this it has been argued that the vision of St. Francis
involves a spirituality that places a distinctive emphasis on the
material world. In the case of Francis, and in the Bonaventurean
development of the vision of Francis, the material world of God's
creation plays a very positive role in spirituality. That the world
can be a problem, even for Bonaventure, we will see later. But
that is no longer a case of the world precisely in its material
nature as God's creation. It is quite a different question.
What we find in Bonaventure, first of all, is a spirituality that
sees a very positive, spiritual significance in material beings and
in human sense experience. Those who are familiar with the writings
of the ancient Eastern Christian writers such as Origen,
Clement of Alexandria, and Maximus the Confessor will notice
striking affinities between their sense of cosmic mysticism and
that of Bonaventure.