17 September Feast
Saint Albert was born towards the middle of the 12th century in Castel Gualtieri in Emilia, Italy. He entered the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross at Mortara, Pavia, and became prior there in 1180. In 1184, he was named bishop of Bobbio, and the following year he was transferred to Vercelli which he governed for twenty years.
Edizioni Carmelitane, the editorial house of the General Curia of Carmelite Order, has recently published Albert and His Rule, a book written by biblical scholar and Carmelite Michael Mulhall.
The Carmelites are one of a small handful of religious communities that can trace their origins back into the Middle Ages. The Rule that Carmelites continue to follow started with Albert, the patriarch of Jerusalem from 1206 to 1214. Some thirty-three years after Albert's death, Pope Innocent IV granted full recogntion of these Carmelites and to the Rule first written for them by Albert.
Albert's spirit still imbues the Rule. Over the years following his death three popes addressed themselves to these Carmelite hermits. Pope Honorius III acknowledged the fact that they had received their way of life from Albert, and consequently they need not fear a later prohibition against following their own unique Rule. Pope Gregory IX, who had befriended both St. Francis and St. Dominic, put the hermits under his personal protection. Lastly, Pope Innocent IV authorized two Dominicans to help bring all their changes together into one text. It is this text that we read today as the Carmelite Rule.
The book Albert and His Rule attempts to retrieve the mindset that first enlivened and held together the vision that Albert fashioned for them. lt is this originai spirit that Albert and His Rule attempts to retrieve.
Visit the New Official Website of Edizioni Carmelitane