Today we celebrate the feast of a Dominican brother—a Dominican saint also called Great—and that is Saint Albert the Great, who was born around 1200 in Lingen, Germany, and joined the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans, in his youth.
He was not a Franciscan, yet he deeply embodies values that resonate with our Franciscan charism—humility, reverence for creation, and the unity of faith and reason. He taught at the University of Paris, where he became known as the Universal Doctor because of his vast knowledge of theology, philosophy, and natural science.
He was the teacher of Saint Thomas Aquinas—imagine that—one of the greatest minds in Catholic theology and philosophy. Saint Thomas Aquinas was his student, his pupil, and he guided him not only intellectually but spiritually.
As Bishop of Regensburg, Albert served with simplicity and pastoral zeal, preferring a life of study and prayer. After resigning his episcopal office, he devoted himself once more to study and contemplation. He saw no conflict between science and faith; for him, the created world was a book—a book that revealed God’s wisdom—a conviction that echoes Saint Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures.
Saint Albert died in Cologne in 1280, and Pope Pius XI proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church in 1931, naming him Doctor Universalis—the Universal Doctor.
In today’s readings, we have a beautiful reflection of what his life encompassed. From the Book of Sirach, our reading personifies Wisdom as a mother and bride who nourishes her children with the bread of understanding and the water of learning. Saint Albert’s entire life was an act of being fed by and feeding others with that divine wisdom. He sought knowledge not for power but for contemplation and service. He allowed the Spirit to open his mouth in the midst of the assembly—whether lecturing on Aristotle or preaching to simple townsfolk.
His humility—his reliance on divine wisdom and his refusal to fall, as the reading tells us—protected his mind from pride, making him a true vessel of divine insight.
Then, in the Psalm, we hear the psalmist pray: “Lord, teach me your statutes.” Saint Albert studied everything—astronomy, biology, physics, theology—but his goal was always to know the Creator through creation. This psalm could well have been his personal prayer: “Within my heart I treasure your promise.” In a world that often idolizes knowledge, Albert teaches us that learning is holy only when it leads to obedience and joy in God’s law. His intellect was luminous because it was rooted in prayer.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of the wise scribe who “brings out from his storeroom both the new and the old.” That was Saint Albert’s vocation—to unite the ancient and the new: Scripture and reason, theology and nature. He did not fear the new discoveries of his time; rather, he purified and elevated them, showing that truth in all its forms points to the same Creator. In this way, Albert reminds us that every sincere seeker of truth—whether scientist or mystic—is participating in the work of the Kingdom.
So what does Saint Albert teach us in particular, we who are Franciscans, and those among you who belong to the Franciscan family?
First, humility before mystery. Like Saint Francis, Albert approached creation not to dominate it but to contemplate it. His vast knowledge only deepened his humility, for he saw how immense God’s wisdom truly is.
Second, the integration of faith and reason. Albert teaches that all truth is God’s truth, and as Franciscans, we too are called to see how theology, philosophy, and science harmonize within divine creation—not as rivals but as facets of one truth.
Third, contemplation that leads to praise. His intellectual life was profoundly doxological: study led to awe, and awe to prayer. Franciscan study, in the same spirit, must always end in praise—Laudato si’, mi Signore!
Finally, wisdom that builds peace. Albert’s peaceable spirit reminds us that true wisdom’s fruit is not pride but gentleness. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” says Jesus, and true wisdom reconciles, not divides.
Saint Albert the Great shows us that holiness and learning can and must go together. He fulfilled the Gospel image of the wise householder who brings out the treasures of the new and the old, reminding us that faith need not fear knowledge, and knowledge without faith is empty.
He and Saint Francis, though from different orders, share the same vision: the created world as a mirror of the Creator. In them both, wisdom is not possession but participation—a humble listening to the voice of God that speaks through Scripture, through creation, and through every sincere act of study and love.
Through the intercession of Saint Albert the Great, may you be blessed this day by God, our Almighty King.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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