இன்றைய புனிதர் :
(13-07-2020)
புனித இரண்டாம் ஹென்றி(St.Henry)
அரசர்
பிறப்பு : 973
பவேரியா (Bavaria), ஜெர்மனி
இறப்பு : 1024
பாம்பர்க்(Bamberg), ஜெர்மனி
புனிதர்பட்டம்: 1146, திருத்தந்தை 3 ஆம் யூஜின்
இவர் பவேரியா நாட்டு அரசராக 995 ல் உரோம் பேரரசின் மன்னராக 1002 ல் உயர்வுப்பெற்றார். திருச்சபையின் நலனுக்காகவும், வளர்ச்சிக்காகவும் போர்களில் ஈடுபடத் தயங்காதவர். இவர் துறவற மடத் தலைவர்களையும், ஆயர்களையும் நியமனம் செய்யும் அதிகாரத்தை பெற்றிருந்தார். இவரின் துணைவியாரும் புனித வாழ்க்கை வாழ்ந்து புனிதர் பட்டம் பெற்றார். உரோம் நகரில் ஏற்பட்ட கலகத்தை நசுக்க திருத்தந்தை 8ஆம் ஆசீர்வதிப்பருக்கு மன்னர் உறுதுணையாயிருந்தார். இவர் மற்ற நாடுகளில் அமைதி நிலவ அரும்பாடுபட்டார்.
இவர் தன் நாட்டு மக்களுக்கு பின்வரும் இறைவசனத்தை அடிக்கடி கூறிவந்தார். "அழிந்து போகும் செல்வத்தை துறந்துவிட்டு என்றும் அழியா, நிலையான செல்வத்தை வான்வீட்டில் சேர்த்து இடத்தை தக்க வைத்துக்கொள்ளவேண்டும்" என்பதை மறக்கக்கூடாது என்பார். இவ்வுலகில் நாம் பெறும் புகழ் புகையாக மறைந்துவிடும். எனவே நிலையான பேரின்பத்தை அடைய முயற்சிக்கவேண்டும் என்று அடிக்கடி கூறுவார். தன் நாட்டில் கடவுளின் இரக்கத்தைப் பெற, பெரிய பெரிய ஆலயங்களைக் கட்டினார். அவற்றின் பராமரிப்பிற்காக செல்வங்களை வாரி வழங்கினார். பாக்பெர்கில்லிருந்து பணத்தை செலவிட்டார். இறுதிவரை இறைப்பணியாற்றி அவ்வாலய பணியின்போதே உயிர் துறந்தார்.
செபம்:
எல்லாம் வல்லவரே! அரசரான போதும் கூட, இவ்வுலக காரியங்களின் மேல் அக்கறை கொள்ளாமல், உம் மேல் அக்கறைகொண்டு வாழ்ந்தார் அரசன் ஹென்றி. தன் நாட்டு மக்களையும், விண்ணகத்தில் செல்வம் சேர்க்க தூண்டினார். இவரால் பவேரியா முழுவதும் இறைபக்தி பரவிற்று. இப்பக்தியானது அம்மக்களிடையே
எப்போதும் நிலைக்க, அவர்களை வழிநடத்தியருள வேண்டுமென்று உம்மை மன்றாடுகின்றோம்.
---JDH---தெய்வீக குணமளிக்கும் இயேசு கிறிஸ்து /திண்டுக்கல்.
† Saint of the Day †
(July 13)
✠ St. Henry II ✠
Holy Roman Emperor:
Born: May 6, 973
Abbach, Bavaria, Germany, Holy Roman Empire
Died: July 13, 1024 (Aged 51)
Near Göttingen, Germany, Holy Roman Empire
Venerated in: Roman Catholic Church
Feast: July 13
Henry II knew as Saint Henry the Exuberant, Obl. S. B., was Holy Roman Emperor from 1014 until his death in 1024 and the last member of the Ottonian dynasty of Emperors as he had no children. The Duke of Bavaria from 995, Henry became King of Germany following the sudden death of his second cousin, Emperor Otto III in 1002, who was crowned King of Italy in 1004 and was crowned by the Pope as Emperor in 1014.
The son of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, and his wife Gisela of Burgundy, Emperor Henry II was a great-grandson of German King Henry I and a member of the Bavarian branch of the Ottonian dynasty. Since his father had rebelled against two previous emperors, the younger Henry was often in exile. This led him to turn to the Church at an early age, first finding refuge with the Bishop of Freising and later being educated at the cathedral school of Hildesheim. He succeeded his father as Duke of Bavaria in 995 as "Henry IV". As Duke, he attempted to join his second-cousin, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, in suppressing a revolt against imperial rule in Italy in 1002. Before Henry II could arrive, however, Otto III died of fever, leaving no heir. After defeating several other claimants to the throne, Henry II was crowned as King of Germany on July 9, 1002, and as King of Italy on 15 May 1004. Henry II in 1004 aided Jaromír, Duke of Bohemia against the Poles, definitively incorporating the Duchy of Bohemia into the Holy Roman Empire.
Unlike his predecessor, who had focused upon imperial attention in Italy, Henry spent most of his reign concerned with imperial territory north of the Alps. His main focus was on a series of wars against the Polish Duke Bolesław I, who had already conquered a number of countries surrounding him. Henry did, however, lead three expeditions into Italy to ensure imperial dominion over the peninsula: twice to suppress secessionist revolts and once to challenge the Byzantine Empire for dominance over southern Italy. On 14 February 1014, Pope Benedict VIII crowned Henry as Holy Roman Emperor in Rome.
The rule of Henry II is seen as a period of centralized authority throughout the 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 clergy 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 personal holiness and efforts to support the Church, Pope Bl. Eugene III canonized him in 1146, making Henry II the only German monarch to be a saint. Henry II married Cunigunde of Luxembourg, who later became his queen and empress. As the union produced no children, after Henry's death the German nobles elected Conrad II, a great-great-grandson of Emperor Otto I, to succeed him. Conrad was the first of the Salian dynasty of Emperors.
He placed his army under the blessing of God and used to invoke the patron saints of his people, especially St. Adrian, a military martyr, whose sword was carefully conserved as a relic for a long time in Walbach.
With this protection, he organized an army and defeated the barbarians from the East who were invading Western Europe. Before facing the pagan Slavs, who were much superior in strength, he called on his army to pray and receive Communion. When the troops entered combat, an unexpected panic took hold of the enemy soldiers, who broke ranks and fled en masse. An Angel and three martyrs led his troops, causing the enemy to take flight in despair. The Slavs submitted to his rule, and Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland were in turn annexed to the Holy Empire.
In 1006, he called a meeting of the Bishops in Frankfurt with the objective of regulating many points of discipline and enforcing a stricter observance of the ecclesiastical canons. Later, he would support the reform movement of Cluny.
Twice he defeated the Lombards, who resisted the consolidation of the Empire and threatened the Pontifical States. After his first victory in 1004, he was crowned King of Lombardy in Pavia with the famous Iron Crown of that Kingdom. The second time, he had to do more than pacify the Lombards, since grave problems were afflicting the Church. Henry drove out an antipope and brought the legitimate Pope Benedict VIII back to Rome.
When he and Empress Cunigunde went to Rome to visit the Pope, they were crowned Emperor and Empress of the Romans. The Sovereign Pontiff gave St. Henry a golden orb, a symbol of the imperial dignity, inlaid with pearls and topped by a cross. St. Henry, dignified by the many honors, gave the orb to St. Odilon, Abbot of Cluny, who was present at the ceremony so that those symbols would be conserved at the Monastery of Cluny.
St. Henry approached Stephen, King of Hungary, who was still a pagan and had not been received into the bosom of the Church. St. Henry II made an alliance with him, offering him the hand of his sister, Gisele, as his wife. Soon afterward King Stephen was baptized and the whole nation was brought to the faith of Christ. With the marvelous conversion of Stephen, Henry won a great King for the Church and a Saint for Heaven.
After other military expeditions in Italy that resulted in the re-establishment of peace in the peninsula, he returned to Germany. On his way back, when he reached Luxembourg, he had a famous meeting with Robert, King of France, to resolve various political problems of Europe. The meeting was scheduled to take place on the banks of the Meuse River, which occasioned a problem of the protocol. If one Sovereign crossed the river to enter the other’s domain, the former would be subject to the laws of the latter. To resolve the delicate situation, it was planned for the Sovereigns to meet in boats in the middle of the river – a neutral area. But St. Henry disregarded the protocol and crossed to the French side in consideration for the virtues of the French King.
Comments:
This selection is somewhat wide-ranging because of the life of St. Henry is full of memorable acts that should be reported. For us to have a good understanding of the ensemble of these facts, it is necessary to place them in their historical context.
We are in the Middle Age, in the early 1000s. As you know, the Middle Age began with the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. It was invaded by incalculable hordes of barbarians. Those barbarians established themselves inside the imperial territory and ended by subjecting the Romans to their control.
Gradually the Roman population also fell into barbarianism. The roads were abandoned with no one to care for them; the aqueducts that supplied the cities with water broke and no one repaired them; the palaces occupied by barbarians became dirty and disorganized; works of art in public places were ruined, and the cities fell into chaos. Everything that represented culture and civilization was miserably destroyed. In this situation Europe became illiterate and its level of customs sunk to unimaginably low levels. It took centuries to bring Europe to a state of civilization again.
While everything was being crushed, the Catholic Church remained as the one existing institution. Those barbarians began to convert under her influence. The work the Church did with the European peoples was not so different from the work she later undertook to convert and civilize the Indians in the New World. The missionaries arrived, preached the catechism, and through successive generations, the Indians became civilized and acquired a certain culture. The same took place with those European tribes.
In the year 1000, civilization had already achieved much in relation to the original barbarian way of living, but Catholic Civilization was still far below the standards it would reach 200 or 300 years later. That is to say, at the time of St. Henry II, we are in a semi-barbarian situation.
Some peoples were more civilized than others. In Europe, there were islands of an incipient Catholic civilization amid a sea of barbarian peoples who continued to go and come at will and attack the established kingdoms. Catholic life was very difficult with adversaries coming from all directions.
One of the earliest conversions took place with the Germanic peoples who occupied the territory of present-day Germany, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. Those peoples became civilized and constituted a political entity called the Holy Roman German Empire. It was called Empire because it encompassed different peoples as a federation. Those free peoples agreed to be led – not governed – by a single political chief, elected by the various heads of State. So, as a league including a large territory and different peoples, it was called an Empire. It was called Roman because its model was the old Roman Empire; it was called German because it had been founded by German peoples, and it was called Holy because its principal finality was to defend the Catholic Church against the aggression of the pagans.
In the person of St. Henry II, we see an Emperor who was also a Saint. What a great political leader and head of an army were a saint does not fit very well with the lives of the saints taught by certain sentimental piety. Indeed, he held the highest office in the most important political organization of his time and was, therefore, the most powerful man in Europe. Simultaneously he was the greatest warrior of Europe and the first son of the Church. He was par excellence the son of the Church. He was the one who always protected the Church against the attacks of her enemies.
He also had to face the peoples of the East who continuously attacked the Empire. So he gathered together a large army and counter-attacked those barbarians. He waged many wars and acted as a Catholic hero who had the spirit of Faith, relying more on supernatural help than on his natural forces. He asked God for the might to win his battles. To show St. Henry how his prayers were pleasing to Him, God gave him a miraculous victory on one occasion. As the two armies came face to face, the enemy troops fled the battlefield in panic for apparently no reason. In fact, to terrify his enemies, God had sent an Angel and the holy martyrs to whom Henry II had prayed. God was so pleased with the prayers of the warriors that he gave them the victory even without the combat.
With this victory, the pagan forces from the East were broken and the claws of Paganism lost their strength.
But danger still threatened Christendom: the presence of the Lombards in North Italy. Lombardy was not a land of pagans, but heretics who were enemies of the Catholic Faith. They used to attack the Pope and the Papal territories and opposed the Catholic Empire. So St. Henry, with the support of the Italian Bishops, entered Lombardy, defeated its army, and then went on to Rome to visit and pay homage to Pope Benedict VIII.
It was on this occasion that the Pope crowned him Emperor of the Holy Roman German Empire. In a ceremony realized with great splendor, he gave St. Henry a golden orb inlaid with pearls representing the power of the Emperor over the world. But St. Henry did not keep that treasure. To prove his love for the Church, he offered the precious gift to the Holy Abbot Odilon, the head of the largest religious order of Europe at that time.
After inflicting new defeats on the revolted Lombards, he returned to Germany. There he assisted the Bishops to exert their role of maintaining discipline in the Church. He also was instrumental in the conversion of a pagan King. He offered an alliance with Stephen, King of Hungary, together with the hand of his sister Gisela. She married Stephen and converted him. She did so good a job that he became a saint, St. Stephen, who afterward converted all of Hungary to the Catholic Faith.
Behind this conversion was the intelligent diplomatic maneuver of St. Henry. With this, he won a precious ally close to those Slavic enemy peoples who had just been pacified. His diplomatic sense was also demonstrated in the episode at the Meuse River, in which he gave up his privileges in order to please the French King. Crossing over to the French banks, St. Henry was implicitly paying homage to the King. That is, he who was more – an Emperor – paid homage to the one who was less in order to maintain cordial relations and to resolve the complicated problems of Europe.
After all these services to the Church and Christendom, St. Henry died in 1024 in the peace of God as a great saint, warrior, diplomat, and politician. This is the glorious story of St. Henry II, Emperor.
Let us pray to him to help us establish the foundation of a new Christendom that will be the Reign of Mary.
~ Late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
