On November 10, the Church celebrates the first Pope with the title “great”, Leo the Great. Today, we celebrate Saint Albert the Great. He wasn’t a Pope, but he was considered the most learned man of his time, the 13th century. In fact, he was the teacher of the greatest theologian of all time, Saint Thomas Aquinas.
St. Albert was born in Germany at the beginning of the 13th
century. As a young man, he went to study
in Italy, to one of the most famous medieval universities in Padua. There he devoted himself to the study of
grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, and
he had a characteristic interest in the natural sciences.
Recall the words of this morning’s opening prayer, “O God,
who made the Bishop Saint Albert great by his joining of human wisdom to divine
faith.” God makes all the Saints great
in holiness, by raising their human virtues to heroic levels, by making their
outpouring of generosity great and shining examples.
He is one of only 33 people in human history known as a
doctor of the Catholic Church—doctor, coming from the Latin word meaning
“Learned One”. Saint Albert could be
named one of the patrons of this Year of Faith for he reminds us that we are to
seek to understand the faith to the best of our ability and pass it on with
faithfulness and generosity.
In Pope Benedict’s Document, “Porta Fidei” which opened this
Year of Faith, he wrote “knowledge of the content of faith is essential for
giving one’s own assent, that is to say for adhering fully with intellect and
will to what the Church proposes.”
We do not just profess faith mindlessly, but seek to
understand that faith to the best of our knowledge—to use our God given
intellects, to understand the faith, that we can better live it out.
Catholics should always be engaged in some kind of
intellectual formation. Now, you don’t
have to sit by the fireside with the newest tome on particle physics, but the
works of the saints, the works of church history have never been more
accessible; you can get Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica on your Kindle!
Albert was called “the Great” even during his lifetime by
his contemporaries because of his immense scholarship and knowledge of
philosophy. Yet, his true greatness lie
in employing his God given talents in service to God.
May the prayers and
example of St. Albert the great help us to deepen our knowledge and love of
God, for the building up of the Church for His Glory and the salvation of
souls.
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