Saint of the Day: St. Henry of Uppsala

St Henry was a missionary to the then-pagan Finns. He was killed by a Finnish soldier who had converted but was excommunicated for the sin of murder.

From Aleteia

By Br Silas Henderson, SDS

His life

+ Henry was born in England. While working in Rome, he was sent as a missionary to Scandinavia, travelling with the papal legate (who would later be elected pope, taking the name Adrian IV).

+ In 1148, Henry was named bishop of Uppsala and dedicated himself to evangelising Norway and Sweden.

+ A friend of the Swedish king Saint Eric, he followed Eric’s lead in reaching out to the Finns. He built a church in Nousis, Finland, which became his missionary base.

+ Saint Henry of Uppsala was murdered by a Finnish soldier whom he had excommunicated for murdering a Swedish soldier. He was buried in Nousis and honoured as a martyr immediately after his death.

For prayer and reflection

Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for that of the gospel will save it.”—Mark 8:34-35

Collect:

V. O Lord, hear my prayer.

R. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God: that the venerable feast of Blessed Theodoret, Thy Martyr, may through his intercession be strengthened in love of Thy Name.

Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

R. Amen. 

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints

St Henry, Archbishop of Upsal, Martyr

HE was an Englishman, and preached the faith in the North with his countryman, Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear, the apostle of Norway, and legate of the holy see, afterwards Pope Adrian IV. by whom he was raised to this see, in 1148. St. Eric, or Henry, (for it is the same name,) was then the holy king of Sweden. 1 Our saint, after having converted several provinces, went to preach in Finland, which that king had lately conquered. He deserved to be styled the apostle of that country, but fell a martyr in it, being stoned to death at the instigation of a barbarous murderer, whom he endeavoured to reclaim by censures, in 1151. His tomb was in great veneration at Upsal, till his ashes were scattered on the change of religion, in the sixteenth century. See John Magnus, l. 1, Vit. Pont. Upsal. Olaus Magnus, l. 4. Bollandus, and chiefly his life published by Benzelius. Monum. Suec. p. 33. 1 Note 1. Stiernman, in his discourse ‘on the State of Learning among the Ancient Swedes,’ observes, that Sweden was chiefly converted to Christianity by English Saxon missionaries. The principal among these were Ansgar; Sigfrid, Roduard, Richolf, Edward, Eskil, David, and Henric, as he gives their names. In the history of the bishops and archbishops of Upsal, published by Benzelius in his Monum. Suec. p. 37, the first whose name is recorded is Everin, whom Benzelius supposes to be the person whom St. Sigfrid consecrated to this see. He seems to have been one of his English colleagues. Stephen, the sixth bishop of Upsal, was the first archbishop. See the life of St. Sigfrid, and Benzelius’s notes on the catalogue of the bishops of Upsal, p. 186. [back]