Saints celebrated on the 13th of July
SAINT HENRY THE PIOUS
St Henry II the Pious was born in 972. Educated by St Wolfgang, bishop of Ratisbon, he became emperor in 1002. By the assiduous practice of humiliations, prayer, and pious meditation, he maintained in his heart the necessary spirit of humility and holy fear, and was enabled to bear the tide of prosperity and honour with a constant evenness of temper.
THE NATIONAL COUNCIL AT DORTMUND
Sensible of the end for which alone he was exalted by God to the highest temporal dignity, he exerted his most strenuous endeavours to promote in all things the divine honour, the exaltation of the church, and the peace and happiness of his people. He procured a national council of the bishops of all his dominions, which was assembled at Dortmund, in Westphalia, in 1005, in order to regulate many points of discipline, and to enforce a strict observance of the holy canons. He was himself present at the synod of Frankfurt in 1006, and at another of Bamberg in 1011.
In Bamberg he had founded an episcopal see, and had built a most stately cathedral in honour of St Peter, which Pope John XVIII took a journey into Germany to consecrate in 1019.
HE VANQUISHED THE SARACENS
He vanquished the conquering Saracens, and drove them out of Italy, and left a governor in the provinces which he had recovered. He came back by Monte Cassino, and was honourably received at Rome. During his stay in that city, by a painful contraction of the sinews in his thigh, became lame and continued so till his death.
HE PROMOTED PIETY AND RELIEVED THE POOR
He continued to make frequent progresses through his dominions to promote piety, enrich all the churches, relieve the poor, make a strict inquiry into all public disorders and abuses, and prevent unjust usurpations and oppressions. He desired to have no other heir on earth but Christ in his members, and wherever he went he spread the odour of his piety, and his liberalities on the poor.
HE WAS ATTENTIVE TO DETAIL
It is incredible how attentive he was to the smallest affairs amidst the multiplicity of business which attends the government of the state; nothing seemed to escape him; and whilst he was most active and vigilant in every duty which he owed to the public, he did not forget that the care of his own soul and the regulation of his interior was his first and most essential obligation. He was sensible that pride and vainglory are the most dangerous of all vices, and that they are the most difficult to be discovered, and the last that are vanquished in the spiritual warfare; that humility is the very foundation of all true virtue, and our progress in it the measure of our advancement in Christian perfection.
HE BANISHED FLATTERERS FROM HIS PRESENCE
Through misinformations, he for some time harboured coldness towards St Herebert, archbishop of Cologne; but discovering the innocence and sanctity of that prelate, he fell at his feet, and would not rise till he had received his absolution and pardon.
He banished flatterers from his presence, calling them the greatest pests of courts
ST HENRY WAS SOMEWHAT MOVED BY THE SLANDER
He had married Saint Cunigunde (Cunegundes) but lived with her in perpetual chastity, to which they had mutually bound themselves by vow. It happened that the empress was falsely accused of incontinency, and St Henry was somewhat moved by the slander; but she cleared herself by her oath, and by the ordeal trials, walking over twelve red hot plough-shares without hurt. Her husband severely condemned himself for his credulity, and made her the most ample satisfaction.
UNFEIGNED TEARS OF HIS SUBJECTS
His health decayed some years before his death, which happened at the castle of Grone, near Halberstadt, in 1024, on July 14. His body was interred in the cathedral at Bamberg, with the greatest pomp, and with the unfeigned tears of all his subjects. The great number of miracles by which God was pleased to declare his glory in heaven, procured his canonisation, which was performed by Eugenius III in 1152.
(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
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