Wednesday July 12:
Weekday in Ordinary Time

Green vestments

Thursday July 13:
Weekday in Ordinary Time and
Feast of Saint Henry, Husband and Ruler

Green or white vestments

    A zealous reformer and evangelist, the Holy Roman Emperor Saint Henry dedicated his entire life to cultivating a deep love for Holy Mother Church and religious life. Born in 973, Henry married Saint Cunegundes, daughter of Siegfride and Hadeswige who had instilled in their daughter the same virtues Henry possessed. Together they strove to fulfill God's will from their positions of power. Because of their joint vow of chastity they never consummated their marriages, remaining pure virgins. Henry was a great advocate of private revelation for he was blessed with many visions and locutions. Just after the turn of the first millennium, he had a vision of his guardian Saint Wolfgang while in prayer one day. Wolfgang was pointing to the words "after six." Not sure what it meant, Henry interpreted it to mean he would die in six years and rededicated his life of prayer. After six years the meaning became evident when he was elected emperor of Germany upon the death of Otto III in 1006. In 1007 he was crowned at Magonza. Dedicating his rule to God, he brought peace to Bavaria, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia and Burgundy by defeating the pagan Slavs with only a small force. Many accounts of people seeing Henry's forces being led by the angels and saints have been passed down. He then turned his attention to Rome, rescuing Pope Benedict VIII from exile and deposing the antipope Gregory in 1012 while reinstating Benedict as the rightful successor of Peter. Benedict crowned Henry emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Whenever Henry entered a city he stopped first at a Church to pay his homage to the real King of kings - Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Once during Holy Mass, Henry was rewarded for his holiness by being blessed to see Jesus Himself celebrate Mass in St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome. Numerous saints filled the empty church as Henry knelt in prayer with Saint Lawrence and Saint Vincent assisting as deacon and sub-deacon respectively. After the Gospel, Our Lady dispatched an angel to Henry for him to kiss the holy book. Upon doing so, the angel touched him gently on his thigh, proclaiming: "Accept this sign of God's love for your chastity and justice." From that point on Henry became lame but knew it was God's will as well as a special gift and accepted it totally as a victim soul. Just before Henry died in 1024 he summoned Cunegundes' parents and, with his holy wife at his side gave her back to them proclaiming, "a virgin still, as a virgin he had received her from Christ." With that his own pure soul was taken up to Heaven. He was burried in Bamberg where he had established a diocese. Cunegundas went on to found a monastery of nuns in the diocese of Paderborn, turning it over to the Order of St. Benedict and became a consecrated religious herself after Henry's death. She died in 1040 and was buried next to Henry. They are considered the patron saints of married couples and hold for us the shining example of purity and fidelity to the duties of our state of life no matter what God has called us to do.

Friday July 14:
Weekday in Ordinary Time and
Feast of Blessed Kateri Tekawitha, Virgin

Green or white vestments

    The first Native American to be selected for canonization, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha was born in Auriesville, New York in 1656; ten years after Jesuit martyrs Saint Isaac Jogues and Saint Jean de Lalande were slain in the same village. Her father was a ferocious, pagan Mohawk chief while her mother was from the Algonquin tribe and had been baptized by the Jesuit missionaries at Three Rivers in Quebec and taken by force from her village by the Iroquois and forced to marry her Mohawk husband. At the age of four, Kateri's family contracted smallpox which took the lives of her parents, prompting her mother's sisters and brothers to adopt the child. Though Kateri survived, her face was permanently disfigured and eyesight impaired. Yet she offered everything up joyously for she had lived. This joyous optimism translated to her converting to the faith on Easter Sunday in 1676. Her conversion prompted a rebellion by some in the tribe who not only ridiculed her and ostracized her, but retaliated against the Jesuits and were seeking Kateri out when one of the priests secretly alerted Kateri and she fled to a Christian colony just outside Montreal. After trekking over 200 miles through the wilderness, she finally reached her destination in 1677 where she studied under the Jesuit missionaries and an older, wise woman by the name of Anastasia. Through their guidance and example, Kateri grew in her faith, leading a life of great austerity and tremendous charity towards others, spending countless hours day and night before the Blessed Sacrament at the small chapel in the colony. At the age of 23 she made a vow of chastity to be a virgin for Jesus. But that chaste life was cut short a year later when she fell seriously ill from one of the many diseases of those times. Just before she passed onto her eternal reward on July 14, 1680, she exclaimed, "Jesus! Mary! I love you!" The death of this Lily of the Mohawks resulted in a fruitful religious revival amongst the Indian tribes who held her up as a saint even back then. In 1943 Pope Pius XII declared her Venerable and thirty seven years later she was elevated to Beatification status by Pope John Paul II. Many suspect it will not be long before she is declared a saint, following the lead of the Native Americans in Caughnawaga, Canada where she died.

July 12-13, 2000
volume 11, no. 120
DAILY LITURGY

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