Blessed Albert of Ogna

The servant of God was the owner of some fields that came from his paternal inheritance. Rich and powerful men disputed his possession of them and eventually dispossessed him. Reduced to indigence, he was forced to give up farming and went to settle in Cremona, where he earne d his l Crémone City of monastic formation and first place of exile. iving through his labor. Although his new state barely offered him enough to meet his needs, he still shared with the poor the little he earned by carrying wine, which was his most ordinary occupation.

He also continued his various practices of piety, thus proving, by his example, that the duties of religion can easily be combined with the most assiduous and tiring work, when one seeks God in the sincerity of one's heart. His devotion led him to Rome and to Santiago de Compostela . Du Rome Birthplace of Maximian. ring t hese pilgrimages, he gave hi Saint-Jacques de Compostelle A major pilgrimage site visited by the saint. mself to work: when resources failed him and as soon as he had received his wages, he hastened to distribute a portion of them to the needy. Not content with assisting them bodily, he became an apostle to them, through the zeal with which he exhorted them to patience, to the confession of their sins, and to a sincere conversion. It was to the poor in the hospitals that he addressed himself above all, and he tried to lead them to the practice of virtue through his charitable exhortations.

Blessed Albert died in Cremona on May Crémone City of monastic formation and first place of exile. 7, 1279, and was buried in one of the churches of that city, where a public cult was soon rendered to him, which was approved by Pope Benedic t XIV on M Benoît XIV Pope who beatified Jerome Emiliani. ay 9, 1748. He is honored in several cities of Italy and among the Dominic ans, becaus Dominicains Religious order to which Christophe Ptolomée belonged. e he had embraced their Third Order.

Among other wonders that are told of the blessed Bergamasque peasant and which have served to characterize him in the arts, it is said that a priest being late in bringing him the Viaticum, a dove flew toward him, holding a host in its beak to give him communion. He is also given the scythe as an attribute: having set out for Rome, he ran out of money and hired out his arms for the harvest. His fellow workers, jealous that he was faster at the task than they were, placed an anvil in the grass he was to mow; but it happened that the anvil was cut like a blade of grass, without chipping the holy man's scythe. Finally, he is also represented crossing from one bank of the Po to the other on his cloak, because the bo Pô River miraculously crossed on a cloak. atmen had refused him passage.

Blessed Albert is the patron of laborers.

See the Bollandists, vol. II of May, and the Dominican Breviary, pri nted in Rome Bellandistes A society of Jesuit scholars who publish the Acta Sanctorum. in 1771; Godescard Godescard French hagiographer and translator of Alban Butler. (Brussels edition).