Saint’s Life Story

His Early Life

Albert was born around 1206 Lauingen an der Donau (Lauingen on the Danube), Swabia (part of modern Germany), near Ulm, in south Germany. He was the eldest son of the Count of Bollstädt, a powerful and wealthy German. His brother Henry and his sister also became Dominicans attesting to the piety of his family.

From the time he was a child, he manifested in his studies an unusual aptitude for the exact sciences. While he was still a boy, Albert had himself let down the side of a cliff to examine at close range an eagle’s nest which interested him.

Student

As a young man, Albert studied at the University of Padua, in Italy, already a center noted for scientific knowledge. Here, Albert received instruction in Aristotle’s writings. It was here in Italy that Albert met Blessed Jordan of Saxony, a fellow-countryman and the second master-general of the Dominican Order following the death of Saint Dominic on August 4, 1221. Jordan’s enormous charisma earned him the nickname ‘Siren of the Schools’ as he travelled from place to place seeking recruits for the young Dominican order. As was Jordan’s custom, he immediately saw to it that Albert, laying aside his rich student’s robes, was clothed in the heavy white wool of the Order.

Dominican Priest

Legend has it that Albert decided to run away from it all. He planned a quiet departure, while carefully laying a ladder against the wall and waiting for his opportunity. As he was kneeling for one last Hail Mary before he should go over the wall, Our Lady appeared to him. She reproached him gently for his forgetfulness of her – why had he not remembered to ask her for what he wanted? Then she gave him the gift of science he so much desired, and disappeared. Whatever the truth behind the legend – and it has survived, almost unchanged, through the many years – it is equally certain that Albert was a devout client of Our Lady and a master scientist.

In addition, Albert’s encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary, convinced him to enter Holy Orders. So, against the wishes of his family, at age 16, Albert entered the Dominican Order and studied theology at Bologna, Italy. Around 1228, Albert was ordained.

Professor

Selected to fill the position of lecturer at Cologne, Germany, where the Dominicans had a house, Albert taught for several years there, as well as in Germany at Regensburg, Freiburg, Strasbourg, and Hildesheim.

In 1245, Albert earned his doctorate in theology under Guerric of Saint-Quentin, the first German Dominican to achieve this distinction. Following this turn of events, Albert was able to teach theology at the University of Paris as a full-time professor, holding the seat of the Chair of Theology at the College of St. James. During this time, Albert was teaching the young Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas as his student.

At one time he had the young Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas as his student. Saint Thomas Aquinas, exceptionally proficient in theological studies, was silent and reflective, to the point of being christened by his fellow students “the Mute Ox of Sicily.” But Albert quieted them, saying, “The bellowings of this ox will resound throughout the entire world.”

Writer

Albert was a prolific writer on Sacred Scripture, theology, philosophy and the natural sciences. He contributed greatly to the adoption of Aristotle’s philosophy of the study of theology, at a time when the systems of Saint Augustine and Plato were in favor. He also wrote more on the Blessed Virgin Mary than anyone else in his day. All Albert’s works form from twenty-one to thirty-eight volumes, depending on the edition. His writings on natural science were highly regarded and contributed to the introduction of Greek and Arabic science and philosophy to medieval Europe.

Dominican Order Provincial

Later in 1254, Albert was sent back to Germany to serve as Provincial of his Dominican Order. He fulfilled his duties of the office with great care and efficiency. In this position, he traveled with no money, always on foot, visiting the many monasteries under his jurisdiction, throughout a vast territory which included: Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, and Holland.

During his tenure, he publicly defended the Dominicans against attacks by the secular faculty of the University of Paris and answered what he perceived as errors of the Islamic philosopher Averroes.

At the General Chapter of the Dominicans held at Valenciennes in 1259, with St. Thomas Aquinas and Peter of Tarentasia (afterwards Pope Innocent V), he drew up rules for the direction of studies, and for determining the system of graduation, in the Order. These rules featured the study of philosophy as an innovation for those not sufficiently trained to study theology. This innovation initiated the tradition of Dominican scholastic philosophy put into practice, for example, in 1265 at the Order’s studium provinciale at the convent of Santa Sabina in Rome, out of which would develop the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the “Angelicum”.

Bishop of Regensburg, Germany

Albert became personal theologian to Pope Alexander IV. In 1260, Pope Alexander IV made Albert Bishop of Regensburg, an office from which he resigned after three years. During the exercise of his duties he enhanced his reputation for humility by refusing to ride a horse, in accord with the dictates of the Order, instead traversing his huge diocese on foot. As Bishop, Albert cleaned up the administration, ordered economies, put the debts in order, solicited generous gifts, and restored deteriorating buildings. By his own example he showed his priests a life of purity, strict poverty, harsh penance, and piety; he helped greatly to restore to fervor a diocese in disorder.

Life After Being a Bishop

In 1263, Pope Urban IV relieved him of the duties of bishop and asked him to preach the Eighth Crusade in German-speaking countries.

After his tenure as Bishop, Albert returned to teach at Cologne. He took a prominent part in the Council of Lyons in 1274, here he took an active part in the deliberations. At Paris, France, in 1277, Albert staunchly defended the teaching of his disciple Saint Thomas Aquinas.

His Death

Albert continued to teach throughout Europe until, two years prior to his death, his mental capacity and memory diminished.

Apparently of fatigue, Albert died, at the age of seventy-three, on November 15, 1280, in Cologne, Prussia (Germany). His relics are located in a Roman sarcophagus in the crypt of the Dominican St. Andrew’s Church in Cologne.

In 1931, the same year he was canonized, Saint Albert the Great was also named one of the Doctors of the Church. Saint Albert is represented in art as a Dominican with a doctor’s cap and a book.

Born:                     Lauingen an der Donau (on the Danube), Swabia (now Germany)

Died:                     November 15, 1280, in Cologne, Prussia (Germany)

Beatified:             November 27, 1622 by Pope Gregory XV

Canonized:          December 16, 1931 by Pope Pius XI

Feast Day:            November 15

Patron Saint:      Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio; Medical Technicians; Natural Scientists; Philosophers; Scientists; Theology Students; University of Paris

Source:

• St. Albert the Great – Catholic Fire
• CatholicSaints.Info » Saint Albert the Great
• Faith and inspiration: Encyclopedia of saints for today | Religion | wmicentral.com by Jean Lee
• Albertus Magnus – Wikipedia

Prayers

Video Link

St. Albert the Great – YouTube (Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network – USA)