St. Albert the Great

Who they were

Albert of Cologne was called the Great in his own lifetime and by his colleagues, which almost never happens. A Dominican teaching across the young universities of Europe, he took as his project nothing less than all of it. He wrote systematically on physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, botany, mineralogy, and zoology, including field observations he made himself, insisting that in the study of nature experience is the only safe guide, and on philosophy and theology besides.

He championed the recovery of Aristotle when that was a dangerous enthusiasm. His greatest single act of judgment was recognizing what sat silent in his classroom: when students mocked the big quiet Italian as the dumb ox, it was Albert who answered that this ox's bellowing would fill the world. He outlived his student Thomas Aquinas by six years, defending his work after his death, and was declared a Doctor of the Church and patron of the natural sciences in 1931.

Why people turn to St. Albert the Great

Working scientists, researchers, and lab students. And anyone carrying the modern assumption that faith and science are enemies, for whom his whole biography is the counterexample.

How to ask their intercession

Before the experiment, the defence, or the grant deadline. And ask his prayers for his signature grace, which was patience with the evidence.