RBWords

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2013  ST. ALBERT THE GREAT, O.P. - Dominican friar, bishop and doctor of the church

     When I entered the Order of Preachers [Dominicans] in August 1964, I entered for the province of St. Albert the Great.  That was my introduction to someone I had never really heard of before then.  My ignorance was soon to be replaced with an appreciation of this man who was famous even in his own time, the 13th century, for his scientific knowledge.  He was one of the greatest naturalists of the Middle Ages.  In addition to that, he was the teacher and mentor of St. Thomas Aquinas and in old age had to take on the job of a bishop [which he resigned after only a few years].  He lived to be 80 years old, no mean feat in that day and age!

 

     At the Dominican seminary [studium] where I studied theology, there was a large statue of him with a frog in one hand and a book in the other!  Other images show him with a chemical beaker in the hand.  It would never have occurred to him that faith and science would be enemies, as the Book of Wisdom reminds us today.  Indeed the passage, although not chosen by the lectionary for St. Albert the Great, is completely appropriate because it describes St. Albert who did indeed "discern the artisan in the works" and found the original author in the greatness and beauty of created things.  All who love the beauty of creation and all who study it as a matter of science can find a hero in St. Albert the Great, O.P., who preached as much from his study as he did from the pulpit!    AMEN