Saint Henry

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 seen leading his troops and the heathen fled in despair. 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.

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. 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.