Saint Henry

Lives of the Saints

by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition

[1894]

—ST. HENRY, Emperor.

HENRY, Duke of Bavaria, saw in a vision his guardian, St. Wolfgang, pointing to the words “after six.” This moved him to prepare for death, and for six years he continued to watch and pray, when, at the end of the sixth year, he found the warning verified in his election as emperor.

Thus trained in the fear of God, he ascended the throne with but one thought—to reign for His greater glory. The pagan Slavs were then despoiling the empire. Henry attacked them with a small force; but angels and Saints were seen leading his troops, and the heathen fled in despair.

Poland and Bohemia, Moravia and Burgundy, were in turn annexed to his kingdom, Pannonia and Hungary won to the Church. With the Faith secured in Germany, Henry passed into Italy, drove out the Antipope Gregory, brought Benedict VIII. back to Rome, and was crowned in St. Peter’s by that Pontiff, in 1014.

It was Henry’s custom, on arriving in any town, to spend his first night in watching in some church dedicated to our blessed Lady. As he was thus praying in St. Mary Major’s, the first night of his arrival in Rome, he “saw the Sovereign and Eternal Priest Christ Jesus” enter to say Mass. Sts. Laurence and Vincent assisted as deacon and sub-deacon. Saints innumerable filled the church, and angels sang in the choir.

After the Gospel, an angel was sent by Our Lady to give Henry the book to kiss. Touching him lightly on the thigh, as the angel did to Jacob, he said, “Accept this sign of God’s love for your chastity and justice;” and from that time the emperor always was lame.

Like holy David, Henry employed the fruits of his conquests in the service of the temple. The forests and mines of the empire, the best that his treasury could produce, were consecrated to the sanctuary.

Stately cathedrals, noble monasteries, churches innumerable, enlightened and sanctified the once heathen lands. In 1022 Henry lay on his bed of death. He gave back to her parents his wife, St. Cunegunda, “a virgin still, as a virgin he had received her from Christ,” and surrendered his own pure soul to God.

Reflection.—St. Henry deprived himself of many things to enrich the house of God. We clothe ourselves in purple and fine linen, and leave Jesus in poverty and neglect.

Saint Henry Gn 44:18-21, 23b-29; 45:1-5/Mt 10:7-15 (386).

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/saints/henry-ii-600
CATHOLICISM SAINTS ST. HENRY II

*Henry II (German: Heinrich II; Italian: Enrico II; 6 May 973 – 13 July 1024), also known as Saint Henry the Exuberant, Obl. S. B., was Holy Roman Emperor (“Romanorum Imperator”) from 1014. He died without an heir in 1024, and was the last ruler of the Ottonian line. As Duke of Bavaria, appointed in 995, Henry became King of the Romans (“Rex Romanorum”) following the sudden death of his second cousin, Emperor Otto III in 1002, was made King of Italy (“Rex Italiae”) in 1004, and crowned emperor by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014.

The rule of Henry II has been characterized as a period of centralized authority throughout the Holy Roman Empire. He consolidated his power by cultivating personal and political ties with the Catholic Church. He greatly expanded the Ottonian dynasty’s custom of employing clerics as counter-weights against secular nobles. Through donations to the Church and the establishment of new dioceses, Henry strengthened imperial rule across the Empire and increased control over ecclesiastical affairs. He stressed service to the Church and promoted monastic reform. For his remarkable personal piety and enthusiastic promotion of the Church, he was canonized by Pope Eugene III in 1146. He is the only medieval German monarch to ever have been honoured a saint. Henry II’s wife was the equally pious Empress Cunigunde, who was canonized in 1200 by Pope Innocent III. As the union produced no children, the German nobles elected Conrad II, a great-great-grandson of Emperor Otto I, to succeed him after his death in 1024. Conrad was the first of the Salian dynasty of emperors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  

1 Jn 3:2