Hughes: Albert the Great, 10

Albert the Great by Sr. M. Albert Hughes, O.P.
10
The Quality of the Saint

Autumn 1987 Vol. 39 Supplement

DOMINICANS are not only religious and contemplatives, they are apostles. just as in one sense contemplation is the end and purpose of their whole life, so in another sense the apostolate provides this goal and motive, since Dominicans contemplate so as to give to others the fruits of their contemplation. Thus love of souls is an outstanding virtue in every true Dominican, who must, as St. Albert says "consecrate oneself to the salvation of souls by holy meditation, fervent desires, tears, prayers, watchings, fasting, teaching, and finally by preaching." All these he did. He lived, prayed, worked for souls, and was ever at their disposal in the confessional as if he were the humblest curate. They came to him with all their troubles, and he helped and consoled them with his advice and sympathy. The souls of priests and religious, those who had the care of souls and of those on whose prayers the shepherds of souls depend, were his special concern, realizing as he did that if the chosen portion of the Lord's flock fell short of what it ought to be, little could be expected from the faithful in general. But while no branch of the apostolate was outside his scope, teaching and preaching were his special sphere.
All his life he remained a teacher wedded to the master's chair. (A chair said to be his, though probably of a later date, is still shown at Regensburg.) So many pupils flocked to his side that the legend grew up that in Paris no room was large enough to hold his class. His "chair" was then transferred to the open air in what was henceforward Place Maître Albert, which became corrupted into Place Maubert.
As bishop, provincial, and papal legate, he had to cease teaching for a while, but always he returned to his chair at the first opportunity, and it was there that the intimation of his approaching death was given to him. It is interesting to note too that he died not in his bed, but sitting in a chair. He taught by word and by the pen. Many of his books were for the use of or against the errors of the most learned scholars of his age; some were written at the request of his brethren in religion. And at least one, unfortunately now lost, a book in which the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the theological text-book of the schools, was condensed into a series of prayers, was compiled for the use of the ordinary, almost unlettered lay-folk, to whom he wished to make accessible the riches of the Church's dogmatic teaching. We do not hear that he ever wrote a children's book, but it would have been quite in keeping with what we know of his character to have done so!
If obedience sometimes called Albert away from his teacher's chair, it never separated him from the preacher's pulpit. In Paris, Cologne, at the Papal Court, as provincial, bishop, in season and out of season he preached the Word of God with such success that one biographer called him the greatest orator of his century. This was not the case, for others excelled him. But here as always his greatness was outstanding; it can be appreciated even today because some of his sermons have come down to us just as they were delivered. Pére Danzas has said that they are perfect specimens of the homiletic art, and could very well be imitated by preachers of today. At the request of his brethren Albert wrote a treatise on the art of preaching, but this, too, has unfortunately been lost. Also by request he issued a volume of sermons in which the whole treasure of his experience and learning was made available to his fellow preachers, although in such a manner that the very learning seemed to be concealed, lest its display should overwhelm the humble hearer for whom the sermons were intended. These sermons are all based on and filled with quotations from Holy Scripture, and it may be remarked that they assume in the uneducated laity a familiarity with the Bible which is seldom found today even in the most educated religious.
In his introduction St. Albert remarks that
From this source [i.e. his book of sermons, which are intended as specimens and a sort of compendium of subjects), ordered and based on Holy Scripture, a whole harvest of sermons could be produced, God willing. There could be found, now in one place, now in another, material for strengthening faith, directing souls in the Christian life, and nourishing their devotion.
However, having perhaps had experience of the temptation to which nervous and not too successful preachers often succumb, he adds a warning: "The preacher must take what matter suits him (on each subject). He should limit himself to developing one or two points and leave the rest to another time."
He himself always divided such sermons into three parts. In the first he described clearly and concisely the incident which formed the subject of his sermon, emphasizing the aspects with which he intended to deal. This was the literal explanation of the passage chosen from sacred Scripture. In a sermon on "Dives, and Lazarus" which is regarded as a veritable gem, this consisted of a vivid description first of the rich man at his table and then of the beggar lying at his gate. In the second part he explained the allegorical and mystical interpretation of the passage. In the case quoted, this was a contrast between the misery of Lazarus in the present world and the reward of his virtue in the next, and the pleasure and luxury of Dives during life and its terrible punishment after death. The passage ended with a short yet forceful remark to the effect that if such was the punishment of a simple sin of gluttony and selfishness, what sort of fate awaited murderers, adulterers, blasphemers, thieves, and the like. The final section almost invariably consisted in a prayer that God would bestow on the soul the fruits which should result from these considerations.
It will be noted how great is the simplicity of such a type of sermon. Albert was the mortal enemy of the empty rhetorical displays which were so popular in some circles in his age (as in many others before and since). For him, as we have said, the preaching of the Word of God was allied to the virtue of chastity, and his sermons have in them something of the restraint, the austerity, and the limpid simplicity of that virtue. Moreover, he saw in the spoken word an image of the Incarnate Word, and so he wrote, "The Blessed Virgin Mary wrapped the Word of the Father in humble bands to teach us that the divine Word should be clothed by preachers in simple language rather than in rhetorical finery."
Above all, Albert realized that the word of the preacher was the Word of God, deriving its efficacy not from his merits or ability, but from the grace of God. And so he condemned the preacher who relied on his own power instead of regarding himself as God's instrument and mouthpiece, and who sought his own glory instead of the salvation of souls by making his sermons impressive and ostentatious instead of simple and direct. The Word of salvation, the divine seed," he wrote, "participates in the nature of its origin. It contains within itself a fruitfulness, a divine energy; its effect is to bring forth, when sown in souls, something that is divine." And again:
The seed is not destined to reproduce its own image, still less that of the sower, but the image of the plant that bore it. To preach in a human fashion is to wish an abominable thing, that it should reproduce itself, or else that the sower should as it were multiply himself in the esteem of men, which is what St. Paul calls to preach oneself.
But the Sermones de Tempore and de Sanctis, in which the saint brings himself down to the level of the littlest of the flock and as it were places a veil over the glory of his learning are not the only examples which have come down to us. The thirty-two sermons on the Holy Eucharist, which enjoyed a very wide circulation and were for a long time attributed to St. Thomas, show at his best the doctor, the exegete, the apostle, and the mystic. The subject was very dear to his heart in this volume, meant like the others for the use of preachers, he has set down a treasure of dogmatic and mystical expression which has never been surpassed.
He regards the purpose of the Holy Eucharist as threefold: to recall the divine benefits and so counteract the forgetfulness of God which is one of the effects of original sin; to establish the sacrifice of the New law, and so offer to God a worship which counteracts the attack on his Kingdom made by sin; and to act as a healing food and so counteract the death which sin brought into the world. Each sermon is based on these three aspects, applied in different ways to the different material which God has designed to reveal to me."
In a different way, the commentary on St. John's Gospel attains to as great or even greater heights. This was written from the conferences delivered before the Papal Court at Agnani during and after the defense of the order against its Parisian enemies. It is more than likely that these conferences, which were delivered, to quote a biographer, "in wonder and hushed silence by all," did much to convince the pope of the justice of the Dominican cause. Albert had a special attraction towards the Beloved Disciple whom he resembled in so many ways, and it is in this commentary that the beauty and greatness of his soul shine forth in all their splendor in a way that they never do elsewhere. He had no need to bring himself down to the level of his audience. He was free to speak without restraint and so, valuable as is this book because of the light it throws on Albert the Preacher, it is even more precious because it brings so clearly before our eyes Albert the Saint.
The preceding pages may have given at least some impression of the greatness of Albert's intellect, but they could have done little more than suggest the even more striking greatness of his heart. God is all heart a modern writer has said, for "God is Love," and a saint is one who shares in and reflects something of that infinite abyss of divine charity. Knowledge precedes love, and knowledge should always breathe forth love as it does within the Trinity. But ever since pride wrecked the mighty intellect of Lucifer, the greatest human minds have not always been the greater lovers.
St. John, who learned the divine secrets on the breast of the Incarnate Word, learned how to combine the greatest heights of knowledge and love, the flight of the eagle with the gentle affection of the dove, contemplation with a burning charity. It is in his commentary on St. John's Gospel that Albert demonstrates most clearly that he too had learned this lesson of divine love. His most sublime passages are those in which he treats of love -- God's love towards the world, and the union of love between human beings and God, with its repercussions on the relation among human beings. He also shows how deeply he had entered into the human heart of God Incarnate, and incidentally lets it be seen to what extent his own heart was an image of that divine one. When commenting on the raising of Lazarus he remarks, "It is a true effect of friendship for one to make the evils suffered by a friend one's own." This brings to mind the way in which the saint made his own the attacks which were directed against his beloved friend, Thomas Aquinas. "As he called him by the name of friend," Albert continues, "he showed his willingness to come to his aid, because it pertains to a friend to assist him whom he loves, since they have but one common desire."
Once again, Thomas and Albert's defense of him come to mind, and also the touching story of how Albert, when probably nearly eighty, nursed back to health another beloved pupil, Ulrich von Strassburg, then prior provincial, who had come to Cologne to visit his old master. This was in 1273, and it happened when Rudolph of Hapsburg, lately elected Emperor, and whose cause Albert was soon to plead at the Council of Lyons, was also in the city. He must have had much business to discuss with his advocate, yet Albert found time to act as infirmarian!
When speaking of our Lord's tears over the grave of Lazarus, the saint remarks: "He allowed this sadness so as to consecrate in his person the sentiment of affection which we bear towards our friends." We have seen how Albert's affection towards Thomas caused him to burst into tears whenever the name of his dead pupil was mentioned.
Devotion towards the human person of the Incarnate Word naturally included a tender piety toward him present under the eucharistic species. This devotion, present in Albert from his earliest years, seems to have burned ever more fiercely as his life drew towards its close. This is not surprising, since St. Dominic has handed down devotion to the mass as one of his greatest legacies to his children. We are not told that St. Albert was rapt in ecstasy during the Holy Sacrifice, as St. Thomas was so often, but we do know that his fervor and recollection moved all who saw him. Rudolph of Nymegen says that at night, by prayer and contemplation, he offered himself in sacrifice on the altar of his heart, while by day, with the greatest fervor, he offered the sacred mysteries on the visible altar.
This devotion was expressed, as we have already said, in his writings and sermons, which are among the most sublime both of his own works and of any written on the subject. But it was an affair not of the mind alone but also of the heart. As the fourteenth century Dominican chronicler Bernard Gui says, "Towards the end of his life he wrote a book on the Sacrifice of the Altar in which he clearly reveals the purity of his faith in God, the fervor of his devotion towards the most sacred mystery of the divine Incarnation, and his excellent knowledge of the divine Scriptures." Elsewhere he writes, "He reveals the purity of his faith, the liveliness of his hope, and the fire of his charity."
Albert wrote an office for Corpus Christi, never much used, as well as many prayers to the Eucharistic Redeemer, of which the best-known runs as follows:
Hail, Savior of the world, the Father's Word -- true victim, living flesh, wholly God, truly man. Ingrafted in you, may we be worthily offered in your Majesty's divine temple. Brought near to the Body at the Father's right hand, may we one day share your eternity, have fellowship in your bliss, and be incarnate in your Incarnation, for yours is all honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen! (1)

This is typical of that form of prayer which Albert practiced, based on the contemplation of revealed truth. It was with prayers such as this that he concluded his sermons, enabling the people to exercise their devotion while acquiring a knowledge of the dogmas of their faith.
Albert, the Praedicator Crucis, had also a great devotion not only to the Passion of our Savior but also to all relics and reminders of the Passion. When his body was exhumed, a cross was found strung on a ribbon around his neck, and of his devotion in life Peter of Prussia wrote:
We have shown that he was a lover of the Cross of Christ: and out of special devotion towards the veneration of the Cross he suspended a large crucifix high up between the choir and the church in the church of the brethren at Cologne, so that it could be adored by all; in which, so as to increase devotion to that particular image, he himself placed relics of the saints and consecrated them when he was bishop.
King St. Louis IX, the great Crusader, was Albert's intimate friend and gave to him, perhaps during the general chapter held at Paris in 1256, a particle of the true Cross and a thorn from the Crown of Thorns, which in 1271 Albert presented to the Dominican convent in Cologne. Peter of Prussia relates that at the saint's prayer the authenticity of this relic was proved when he threw it into the fire and it immediately came out unharmed.
Albert appears to have been a pioneer of devotion to St. Joseph, in whose honor he wrote an office, while he showed his filial affection for his spiritual father, St. Dominic, by introducing his feast into the diocese of Regensburg when he was bishop.
Something of Albert's devotion to the Blessed Virgin has already been noted. She was the continued object of his contemplation and his most tender love. So well known was this that he was called "her votary and bedesman," and she "the Lady of his heart." He called her affectionately Maria Auxiliaris Nostra, and to her he attributed all his learning and the success of his work.
According to tradition he was granted at least two visions of Mary -- the first when she called him to "her order," the second when she appeared to encourage him when he was assailed with doubts about his vocation. She prophesied to him the nature and success of his work and also his final collapse which would be a portent of his approaching death. He wrote more about her than did any other scholastic doctor, and all his treatises combine solid doctrine with the most tender piety. Apparently in her honor he also composed many hymns, which unfortunately have not come down to us. Rudolph of Nymegen writes:
So great was his love for Mary that he could never cease from praising her. Nay even more; he added to each one of his books something about the Lady of his heart, or ended his studies with a hymn in her honor. He composed many Marian sequences, which are distinguished for their mystical sense and their harmony, and he himself used to sing them with devotion and enthusiasm in the convent garden or in other places. Sometimes his sights and tears choked his voice, showing the ardor of his love, and the depth of his piety.

Peter of Prussia adds the detail that whenever he mentioned Mary's name he always added some honorable title, as "the beautiful," "the pure," "the most blessed," or "the incomparable Mother of the Creator." The same biographer also remarks that, because the saint received his knowledge from Mary, he seemed to consider that he owed her a special debt of gratitude. This he repaid not only by praising her on every possible occasion, but also by striving to imitate her humility, her Purity, her kindness, and her charity; to honor them with the tribute Of his Salutations and worship, and to lead and exhort others to do likewise. The book De Laudibus Mariae, for long attributed to St. Albert, is not his work, but her praises are found in almost every one of his writings. Of his devotion to her one person wrote, "No sacrifice counted beside the honor of entering her service."
In one of the many touching prayers which he addressed to Mary, Albert shows the confidence which he placed in the intercession of this heavenly Mother.
O holy Mary, light of heaven and earth as your name signifies, of this earth which you have enlightened with the Mysteries of your Son, the divine Word; you who have illumined the splendor of the angels themselves, obtain for me an enlightened intelligence, true ideas, certain knowledge, a firm faith, with a speech which corresponds to it and brings grace to my hearers, a speech which will conduce to the strengthening of the faith, to the edification of Holy Church, and to the honor of the sacred name of our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son. May this speech prove, O divine Mary, that you never cease to overwhelm with the treasures of your mercy a sinner so unworthy as I, and to manifest by my mouth the prodigies of your all-powerful intercession.
Elsewhere he describes in the following terms the happy results of her maternal protection:
The shadow of her virginity [will act as a protection] against the seductions of the senses; the shadow of her humility against the breath of vainglory and the buffets of pride; the shadow of her prayer against the diabolical allurements of temptation.
Of all the "Friars of Mary," few if any have belonged more completely and wholly to her than did Albert of Cologne. And yet she was not the end, but only the way and the door, "the Grace of the way and of Truth"; not the life, but "the hope of Life"; not the Word, but the Mother of the Word; not the Wisdom which he sought and loved, but the Seat of Wisdom. This last title is perhaps that which best expresses all that Mary meant to Albert.
He addressed her in one of his hymns as "the Mother of Mercy and the noble resting-place of the whole Trinity," and this embraces both her relations with men and with God. To Albert the title of Mother of Mercy signified every aspect of what we now call her universal mediation. And of all the graces which she brings to human creatures, Wisdom is perhaps the greatest, and he may well have prayed with Solomon: "Give me Wisdom ... for she knows and understands all things, and shall lead me soberly in all my works, and shall preserve me by her power," thinking both of the gift of wisdom and of her who is the Seat of eternal Wisdom, Mother of the Word Incarnate. In words which the Church applies to our Blessed Lady, Wisdom declares: "They that eat me shall yet hunger and they that drink me shall yet thirst. He that hearkens to me shall not be confounded: and they that work by me shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting." It is not unreasonable to attribute to his devotion to and honor of the Seat of Wisdom that gift of wisdom which was the most outstanding feature of St. Albert's spirituality.
"The gift of wisdom," as St. Thomas declares (ST, I-II, Q.45, A.4), "enables us to judge aright of divine things, or of other things according to divine rules, by reason of a certain connaturality or union with divine things, which is the effect of charity." Charity is the foundation of wisdom, as of all the other gifts which grow in proportion to it, that charity whereby man loves God and becomes one spirit with him, which is the created participation of love whereby God loves himself and all creatures. For "God is love; and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16). Charity, says St. Albert, "has attached man and God to the same yoke." But love must give, for love is a gift, the fruit of the mutual self-giving of Father and Son and their Gift to each other in the person of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of themselves to the world. Amor ex amore, te amorem misit, sibi membra sua junxit -- so does an ancient sequence admirably express that gift of divine love to the world.
"Love must bestow itself as a gift," wrote Albert; "if it ceases to be a gift, it cease to be love." This applies to created love as well as to its uncreated Source and Exemplar, which is the inner life of the adorable Trinity.
By love we give ourselves to God who has first loved us, i.e. given himself to us. When he was quite a young religious, Albert was described as tutto dedito et assorto in Deo ("completely surrendered to and lost in God") -- an apt summary of his whole spiritual life. He gave himself by prayer, by penance, by study, surrendering himself completely to the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. (It is interesting to note that the theology of the Procession of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is one of the finest chapters of Albert's dogmatics, while his explanation of the working of the gifts of the Holy Spirit was taken up and expanded by St. Thomas, thus becoming the classical teaching of the order and Thomistic School.) Being thus wholly given to God, he was a pliable instrument in God's hands and was ready to receive and to pass on to others light, truth, and love from above. By writing, teaching, preaching, in the confessional, in all his intercourse with men, he was to them like a sacrament of divine love bringing God to them - the perfect example of the Dominican ideal -- Contemplare, contemplata aliis tradere.
Contemplation, as we have said, was the beginning of all his activity, but it was also the end. God is not to be outdone in generosity. To the soul which generously gives itself wholly to him, God gives himself wholly in return in that union which is the fruit of the gift of wisdom, described by St. Albert as "the first truth relished as the Supreme Love."
Albert sought the truth out of love, and because, as St. Thomas says (ST, II-II, Q.45, A.6 ad 2), "Uncreated Wisdom first of all unites itself to us by the gift of charity, and consequently reveals to us the mysteries of knowledge which is infused wisdom," he found Wisdom who became the ruler of his life. Apropos of this gift he had written, "Certain men receive this gift in a more eminent degree, either in what concerns the contemplation of divine things and for the purpose of enabling such men to dispense their mysteries, or else in the direction of human affairs conformable to he divine law, so as to make them capable not only of conduction themselves according to these laws, but also of applying them to the conduct of others."
He possessed the gift in both its aspects, but pre-eminently in the first. By the gift of knowledge he saw the Creator in all the natural truths which he studied. By understanding he penetrated deeply into the revealed truths of faith. By wisdom he ascended on high, seeing all things as it were through the eyes of God in the light of truth and judging everything under the influence of that vision. "He excelled in purity of life, in wisdom and in science," wrote another saint, Peter Canisius.
Wisdom enables a person to find unity in the midst of multiplicity, to see and judge and do all in God. In the midst of the multifarious activities of his long life Albert always kept before his eyes "the one thing necessary," and never allowed accidental and transitory events to turn him from what he knew to be his true vocation. St. Thomas, following St. Augustine, ascribes to the gift of wisdom the seventh beatitude, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." Since in Albert's life the office of peacemaker was frequently and successfully performed, it is but natural to attribute this to the wisdom which was his. We have already noted the sense of filial love which so dominated the saint's last years, and although this pertains to the gifts of piety and fear it is also connected with wisdom, for, as St. Thomas continues: "men are called children of God in so far as they participate in the likeness of the only begotten and natural Son of God; according to Romans 7:29, 'whom he foreknew to be made conformable to the image of his Son,' who is Wisdom Begotten. Hence by participating in the gift of wisdom, man attains to the sonship of God."
Finally, wisdom implies a certain union or connaturality with divine things and therefore with God their source, accompanied by a spiritual sweetness. This sweetness Albert most certainly enjoyed. His definitions of wisdom and theology already quoted are proof of this. So too is every page of his more mystical and spiritual writings, which possess an unction and a savor which can only come from one who has obeyed the injunction of the Psalmist "to taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:8).
He defines contemplation as "an application of all the affective and intellectual faculties of man for the purpose of knowing divine things, with sweetness of the heart and ravishment of the mind." And when he says elsewhere that by contemplation man is at it were on the line of the horizon between time and eternity, we know that the sweetness of which he speaks belongs more to the next world than to this.
When Albert was dead men were so convinced of his sanctity that they could not bring themselves to sing a Requiem on his anniversary, but chose instead the Mass of eternal Wisdom. In drawing up the Office for his feast it would almost seem as if holy Mother Church has had this fact in mind: "Because you have asked for wisdom, behold I have done to you according to your works, and I have given you a wise and understanding heart, insomuch that there has been no one like you before, nor shall rise after you." (St. Albert was hailed by some as even greater than Solomon.) So runs the "Little Chapter" for Vespers. The First Nocturn lessons well have been written to describe him:
He will give his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, and he will pray in the sight of the Most High. He will open his mouth in prayer and will make supplication for his sins. For if it shall please the Lord he will fill him with the Spirit of Understanding, and he will pour forth the words of his Wisdom in showers, and in his prayer he will confess to the Lord, and he shall direct his counsel and his discipline, and in his secrets he shall meditate. He shall show forth the discipline he has learned and he shall glory in the Law of the Covenant of the Lord. Many shall praise his Wisdom and it shall never be forgotten: the memory of him shall not depart away, and his name shall be in request from generation unto generation. Nations shall declare his Wisdom, and the Church shall show forth his praise.
The antiphons for Lauds and Second Vespers may serve as a fitting conclusion to this study:
By the austerity of his life, the fervor of his prayer, his love of the brethren, and the brilliance of his doctrine Albert glorified the Lord....(SEE)
O Lord God of all knowledge, we praise and thank you with mouth and heart because you have raised up so great a doctor from among our fathers.

NOTES
1. In the Ancren Riwle, part 1, "Of Divine Service," occurs the following passage:
"In the Mass, when the Priest elevates God's Body, say these verses standing: 'Behold the Savior of the world; the Word of the Father; a true sacrifice; living flesh; entire Godhead; very Man.'"
Is this a proof of Dominican influence in the compiling of the Riwle? Or did St. Albert add to a well-known ejaculation? Or is the authorship of the prayer wrongly ascribed to him?

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