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     Dominicans around the world today celebrate the feast day of one of our most famous brothers:  Albert of Lauingen, better known as St. Albert the Great.  He was even called "the Great" during his lifetime!  [ca. 1200-1280].  To live eighty years in the thirteenth century was quite an achievement in itself, but Albert was known more for his inquiring mind.  He was one of the first great naturalists/scientists of his age.  When I first entered the Dominican Order, I entered the Province of St. Albert the Great.  At the "studium" [Dominican word for seminary] in Dubuque, Iowa, where I studied theology, there was a huge statue of St. Albert in the courtyard.  He had a book in one hand and a frog in the other!  Other depictions put a glass chemical container in place of the frog, but Albert was equally at home in natural as well as physical sciences.  His influence was pivotal not only in the world of science of the time (he really was well-known!) but in the life of one of his students who became even more famous:  Thomas Aquinas!

     Albert would have been comfortable with the statement from the gospel for today.  [Dominican locations will probably feature other scriptures.]  Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is not a "thing" that can be measured or pointed to, in an empirical way.  Yet the Kingdom is something that can be experienced in the same way that we experience love or goodness in others.  The community for which the Gospel of Luke was written was going through some hard times, especially being persecuted by the Romans.  Members of the community may have wished that God would swoop down and set things straight, and re-establish the kingdom of David, etc.  Albert would have understood the difference between what is known by faith and what is known by reason and what is known by observation!  These were well integrated in his life and contributed to his fame.  Indeed, it is in people like him and millions of other unsung heroes and heroines that we experience the Kingdom of God.  Something as simple as a good deed or a hug at the right moment will say all that needs to be said.  In the meantime, dedication to learning about all that God's creation can teach us is the gift of our brother, Albert the Great.  Happy Feast Day, Albert!   AMEN