By Daniel Burke, EWTN News, November 15, 2011
Daniel Burke is an award-winning author, writer and speaker on Catholic spirituality. He has written or edited nine books on faithful Catholic spirituality and is the president of the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, and the creator of Divine Intimacy Radio and SpiritualDirection.com.
St. Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus), scientist, philosopher, theologian, pioneer, pray for us.
St. Albert the Great was considered the “wonder and the miracle of his age” by his contemporaries. He was an assiduous Dominican whose accomplishments and gifts to the Church would be difficult to exaggerate.
Born around 1206 and joining the Order of Preachers in 1223, Albert quickly became a master of almost every academic subject. Notwithstanding the standards of his own time, he became a pioneer of the natural sciences — both empirical and philosophical. His teachings on nature and theology were revolutionary, and he captured the attention of a young and taciturn Dominican — St. Thomas Aquinas. …