Flora Cantábrica

Saint Albert the Great

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Saint Albert the Great

November 15, Saint Albert the Great
Doctor of the Church
Year 1280
May the Blessed Virgin grant us, as she did her devoted devotee Saint Albert,
the gift of wisdom, to do much good.
The first step to acquiring wisdom is
to have a great desire for education.
(Bible, Proverbs).
Albert means «of good family» (Al = family; Bert = good).
Already in his time, people called him «The Great,» the great, the magnificent, for the admirable wisdom he had achieved. They also called him «The Universal Doctor» because he knew everything: religious sciences, natural sciences, philosophy, etc. He was a geographer, astronomer, physicist, chemist, and theologian. People said, «He knows everything there is to know,» and gave him the titles «miracle of the age,» «marvel of knowledge,» and others.
Saint Albert had the honor of having been the teacher of the greatest scholar the Catholic Church has ever known, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and this increased his fame. He discovered the genius within young Thomas.
He was born in Germany in 1206. He came from a wealthy family of importance in government and high society. His father was a Count, or governor of the region. He studied at the University of Padua. There, he met the greatest pioneer of vocations, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, successor to Saint Dominic. Although Albert’s father was opposed to his son becoming a religious man, Jordan’s personality was so impressive to him that he abandoned his future as a landowner, politician, and man of the world and entered the Dominican religious order.
He himself recounted that as a young man, he struggled with his studies, and so one night he decided to run away from the school where he was studying. But as he tried to escape up a ladder hanging from the wall, he thought he saw Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, who said to him: «Alberto, instead of running away from the school, why don’t you pray to Me, who am the ‘Seat of Wisdom?’
If you have faith and trust in Me, I will give you a prodigious memory. And so that you know that it was I who granted it to you, when you are about to die, you will forget everything you knew.» And so it happened. And at the end of his life, one day during a sermon, he forgot everything he knew, and said: «It is a sign that I am about to die, because the Blessed Virgin Mary had told me so.» And he retired from his work and dedicated himself to prayer and preparing for death, and a few months later, he died.
In Cologne, Paris, and several other universities, he was a brilliant professor, and students from many nations came to listen to his classes. He had the merit of having separated theology from philosophy and of having discovered that the philosopher Aristotle bears a strong resemblance to Christian ideas (a task later perfected by his disciple Saint Thomas).
He wrote 38 volumes on all subjects: theology, philosophy, geography, chemistry, astronomy, etc. He was a true living encyclopedia.
He was appointed provincial superior of his Dominican community. The Supreme Pontiff appointed him Archbishop of Regensburg, but after two years he resigned from that position to devote himself to teaching and writing, which were his preferred occupations.
Coming from a very wealthy family and of high social standing, he toured Germany preaching, traveling for alms, and staying wherever they would give him lodging like a beggar. It was good practice for increasing the virtue of humility.
On November 15, 1280, while chatting quietly with some religious members of his community, he died peacefully. He was 74 years old. He was reputed to have been wiser than all the sages of his time. All his teachings were intended to lead the soul toward God, who is love.
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