Image: Tommaso da Modena, Albertus Magnus, fresco, 1352, Chapter House of San Niccolò, Treviso. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. (source)
Símile est regnum cælórum grano sinápis, quod accípiens homo sevit in agro suo.
Matthew 13:31
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field.
About Today
November 15 in the 1962 calendar is a Sunday, the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost, which takes precedence over the feast of St. Albert the Great. The Sunday has no saint of its own, so today we turn to the saint the Roman Martyrology names for November 15: St. Albert the Great.
His Life
Albert was born around 1200 in Swabia, in Germany, and studied at Padua, where he heard the call to join the Order of Preachers. He became a great teacher at Paris and Cologne, and among his pupils was the young St. Thomas Aquinas.
Albert studied the natural world with wonder, writing on plants, animals, and the heavens, and he believed all truth leads back to God. He served for a time as Bishop of Regensburg, then returned to teaching and to making peace among quarrelling parties. He died in Cologne in 1280 and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931.
A Lesson for Today
Like the mustard seed in today’s Gospel, a small beginning can grow into something great when God gives the increase. Albert shows us that study and prayer belong together, and that patient effort offered to God bears fruit.
Sancte Alberte, ora pro nobis.
St. Albert, pray for us.
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