Today is the feast of . . . St Albert of Jerusalem. At least, it is in the
Carmelite Order; the rest of the Church celebrates him (if at all) on
September 25th. I know because I was asked to go this morning to celebrate
Mass at the Carmelite monastery [sic] of nuns [or sisters] at Thicket Priory
[sic].
I thought I ought to go forearmed with a little knowledge about St Albert of
Jerusalem. I looked him up in Butler's Lives of the Saints; but he isn't
there. So I looked him up in Baring-Gould's Lives of the Saints; but he
isn't there either. Nor is he in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church. So I did what any other member of the list would have done in the
first place, and looked him up on the internet. And this is what I found.
St Albert of Jerusalem was Patriarch of Jerusalem and is patron of the
Carmelite Order. He was an outstanding ecclesiastical figure in the era in
which the Holy See faced opposition from Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa.
Serving as a mediator in the dispute between the emperor and Pope Clement
III, Albert was made an imperial prince, a sign of favor from Barbarossa.
Albert was born in Parma, Italy, about 1149, probably to a noble family. He
became a canon at the Holy Cross Abbey in Mortoba. In 1184 he was appointed
as the bishop of Bobbio, Italy, and soon after he was named to the see of
Vercelli. It was during this period of service as the bishop of Vercelli
that he served as mediator between the pope and emperor.
In 1205, Albert was appointed the patriarch of Jerusalem, a post
established in 1099 when Jerusalem became a Latin kingdom in the control of
Christian crusaders. Jerusalem, however, was no longer in Christian hands,
as the Saracens recaptured the city in 1187. The Christians needed a
patriarch, but the position was open not only to persecution but to
martyrdom at the hands of the Muslims. Albert accepted and he proved himself
not only diplomatic but winning in his ways. The Muslims of the area
respected him for his sanctity and his intelligence. Because of the Muslim
presence in Jerusalem, Albert took up residence in Akko, then called Acre,a
northern port There he became involved in a concern that assured his place
in religious history.
Overlooking the city and bay of Acre is the holy mountain called Carmel. At
the time, a group of holy hermits lived on Mount Carmel in separate caves
and cells. Albert was approached by St. Brocard, who was the prior or
superior of the group of hermits. In 1209, the hermits asked Albert to draw
up a rule of life for them, a rule that would constitute the beginning of
the Carmelite Order. Albert's rule regulating the monastic life of these men
included severe fasts, a perpetual abstinence from meat, silence, and
seclusions. Pope Innocent IV mitigated the rule in 1254, allowing that it
was too rigorous.
Albert mediated the dispute among various groups in Palestine and conducted
Church affairs. He was called to the general council of the Lateran in 1215
but was assassinated before leaving Palestine. A madman that he had
discharged from a local hospital stabbed him during the procession on the
feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
The nuns/sisters declared that they had never heard so much before about
their founder, and kept my homily/sermon for a souvenir.
The Supple Doctor.
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