He assisted at the fifth general chapter of his Order in Rome in 1613, and after it, with the new general, visited the houses in Lombardy, giving them his last exhortations, which were everywhere received with tears. At Genoa he was extremely ill, but being a little better, duke Doria Tursi sent him in his rich galley to Civita Vecchia, whence he was conveyed in a litter to Rome. He recovered so as to be able to finish the visitation of his hospitals, but soon relapsed, and his life was despaired of by the physicians. Hearing this, he said,—I rejoice in what hath been told me: We shall go into the house of the Lord. He received the viaticum from the hands of cardinal Ginnasio, protector of his Order, and said with many tears,—“O Lord, I confess I am the most wretched of sinners, most undeserving of thy favor; but save me by thy infinite goodness. My hope is placed in thy divine mercy through thy precious blood.” Though he had lived in the greatest purity of conscience ever since his conversion, he had been accustomed to go every day to confession with great compunction and many tears. When he received the extreme unction he made a moving exhortation to his religious brethren, and having foretold that he should die that evening, he expired on the 14th of July, 1614, being sixty-five years one month and twenty days old. He was buried near the high altar in St. Mary Magdalen’s church; but upon the miracles which were authentically approved, his remains were taken up and laid under the altar; they were enshrined after he was beatified in 1742, and in 1746 he was solemnly canonized by Benedict XIV. See the life of St. Camillus by Cicatello his disciple, and the acts of his canonization with those of SS. Fidelis of Sigmaringa, Peter Regalati, Joseph of Leonissa, and St. Catharine de Ricci, printed at Rome in 1749, p. 10, 65, and 529, and Bullar. Rom. t. 16, p. 88. Heylot, Hist. des Ordres Relig. t. 4, p. 263.
ST. IDUS, BISHOP OF ATH-FADHA IN LEINSTER.
Was a worthy disciple of St. Patrick, by whom he was baptized. He is often invoked in the old Irish prayer in verse which bears the name of St. Moling. See Colgan in MSS.
JULY XV.
ST. HENRY II. EMPEROR.
From his authentic life, published by Surius and D’Andilly, and from the historians Sigebert, Glaber, Dithmar, Lambert of Aschaffenburg, Leo Urbevetanus in his double chronicle of the popes and emperors, in Deliciæ Eruditor. t. 1 and 2. Aventin’s Annals of Bavaria, &c.
A. D. 1024.
St. Henry, surnamed the Pious and the Lame, was son of Henry, duke of Bavaria, and of Gisella, daughter of Conrad, king of Burgundy, and was born in 972. He was descended from Henry, Duke of Bavaria, son of the emperor Henry the Fowler, and brother of Otho the Great, consequently our saint was near akin to the three first Emperors who bore the name of Otho. St. Wolfgang, the Bishop of Ratisbon, being a prelate the most eminent in all Germany for learning, piety, and zeal, our young prince was put under his tuition, and by his excellent instructions and example he made from his infancy wonderful progress in learning and in the most perfect practice of Christian virtue. The death of his dear master and spiritual guide, which happened in 994, was to him a most sensible affliction.In the following year he succeeded his father in the duchy of Bavaria, and in 1002, upon the death of his cousin Otho III. he was chosen emperor.[160] He was the same year crowned king of Germany at Mentz, by the archbishop of that city. He had always before his eyes the extreme dangers to which they are exposed who move on the precipice of power, and that all human things are like edifices of sand, which every breath of time threatens to overturn or deface; he studied the extent and importance of the obligations which attended his dignity; and 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 honor with a constant evenness of temper. Sensible of the end for which alone he was exalted by God to the highest temporal dignity, he exerted his most strenuous endeavors to promote in all things the divine honor, the exaltation of the Church, and the peace and happiness of his people.