Our Patronal Feast of St. Albert the Great - Living Faith and Reason in Light of Eternity

+ J. M. J.+

Homily Outline for the Patronal Feast of St. Albert the Great
(Readings from the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C)

Did you notice all the talk of doom and destruction… the “blazing oven,” and “earthquakes and famine?” We are coming to the end of the liturgical year and next Sunday we go out with a bang, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. The following Sunday the new liturgical year begins with the 1st Sunday of Advent. Now, during these final waning weeks of the liturgical year, the days are getting shorter and shorter, and the winter is settling in upon us. The Church wants to make use of this vivid annual experience, this natural symbol, to invite us to reflect, first, upon death. In early November, we who are engaged in the daily battle, the Church Militant, we celebrate All Saints’ Day, remembering the Church Glorious, asking the saints to pray for us, and then on All Souls’ Day we remember the Church Suffering, praying for those in the purification of Purgatory. We meditate upon the death of our loved ones, our own death, and the ties that extend beyond death.

As November ends, now, we meditate upon the End of Time and Jesus’ 2nd Coming. Jesus rose from the tomb, He walked among His disciples and Apostles, and then He ascended into Heaven. He has promised that He will come again in glory and power at the end of all created things. He came first, in Bethlehem, in hiddenness, in silence, quietly, leaving each person free to choose faith and belief in Him. When He comes again there will be no doubt, no question, for He will come to judge the living and the dead, and the fire of His love will burn away all falsehood and confusion and doubt.

We live in this gap between the Lord’s First Coming and His Return in Glory. We live in this gap of faith, hope, and love, where we are offered grace and truth from God, but where we must always make the choice to receive it. God never forces Himself, His Love, His Mercy, His Truth, upon us. God doesn’t work like a SWAT team, breaking down the door, and handcuffing us to His Body, the Church! As a priest, I’m not the trooper whose job is to bundle you into the caged back of my squad car! Rather, serving as the Lord’s minister, as an Alter Christus, another Christ, radically configured to Jesus Christ by the undeserved gift of ordination, head and chaste spouse of the Church, I am to serve you, to teach you, to be in your midst speaking and living God’s word. St. Paul speaks of this in our 2nd Reading, describing his desire to be one among them who gives a good example of hard work and virtue.

And so, in God’s Living Word, and through me, a priest of Jesus Christ, the Church is inviting us to reflect upon Christ’s coming at the end of time. This will be glorious, but it will also follow great struggle and suffering. Following Jesus Christ, far from guaranteeing an easy and comfortable life, will necessarily involve us in His Cross. Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me. “ Jesus says, “The will seize and persecute you… because of my name.” But He also says, “It will lead you giving testimony.” If we are to navigate the storms of life, whether the ordinary burdens of each day or more surprising burdens, sufferings, or attacks, we must have our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, and we must be grounded in the truth of things. Jesus is coming again, He will judge and restore all things, but as we await that day, life will be a battle, and it will involve great suffering even as it involves great beauty and deep joy. In the midst of those joys and sorrows, we are invited to give witness, to show by our words and lives that we are followers of Christ. In fact, Jesus assures us that if we will trust in Him, if we will wait upon the Lord, if we will listen for His Voice, then, He will give us the words! As He tells us of the battle, He also tells us of His presence with us:

Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute…. not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.

God’s word is not chained, Christ’s grace is not wiped away by difficulty and struggle, not even by sin and failure. If we will keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the defender and perfecter of our faith, He will give us grace and bring us safely to His kingdom. We may suffer, we may die, we may be mocked, we may be ignored or dismissed but if we are faithful to Him, He will be faithful to us!

Today we celebrate our Patronal Feast of St. Albert the Great! St. Albert’s day falls on November 15th, often celebrated for another reason, but the Church allows a parish’s patronal feast to be transferred to the nearest Sunday so it can be more easily celebrated. It is a joy for me to be with you for the first time as we celebrate this feast!

St. Albert was born in what is now Germany around 1205, and after studying at the University of Padua in Italy, he joined the newly founded Dominican Order. He turned his active and agile mind to the study of many different things, and he also became the mentor and teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas. He is renowned above all for the breadth of his learning… he was deeply engaged in philosophy and theology, but also the natural sciences. He made very effective use of the rediscovered philosophical tools of the Ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle, which, among other things, helped him to make increasingly effective use of empirical observation and the very beginnings of the scientific method.

I hope you can see that when St. Albert was chosen as the patron for this parish, it was very apt! So many of you are engaged, whether as students or professionals or professors, in the work of studying the natural world, in all its beauty and complexity. For at least 200 years there has been a widespread prejudice that an intelligent person must choose either faith or reason, that the two are mutually exclusive. The birth of experimental sciences in the very bosom of the Church implies that this is not the case, and St. Albert is a particularly bright example of a man who loved God with all his heart, mind, and strength, and gave glory to God by applying his mind to understanding the created world. Precisely because we know God created the world in love, as Catholics we are confident that the world is intelligible. This is in fact the baseline axiom or assumption of any scientist… if the world is not intelligible, if it does not contain structure and order, however complex, then there is no point in studying it, and there is nothing that could be learned of its structure and function. As we study God’s creation, whether it is a forest, or a cell, or a molecule or a galaxy, we may very well marvel at the beauty and goodness of these things! Their very structure and order tell us of God’s goodness and beauty, and of His love for us.

We know that when Jesus comes again in glory, He will restore and redeem all things, and that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. What we see and observe and measure now is only a hint of the beauty that we are called to by God. By living and loving and exploring created things in light of eternity, we put them in their truest and fullest perspective, in relation to God, and in relation to eternal life. As we celebrate with great joy our patronal feast, we call upon St. Albert for his prayers and intercession, and we seek to follow his example by placing all our gifts at the service of truth and the service of God. As we prepare to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, we ask God to fill us with grace, strength, and wisdom, that as we love and explore His creation, we may not forget our Creator!

+ A. M. D. G. +