Blessed Henry Suso

Blessed Henry Suso was born Heinrich von Berg on 21 March 1295 at Uberlingen, Germany, to the German nobility. He joined the Dominicans at the age of thirteen. He is known as a mystic and served as prior of several houses.

From 1322 to 1325 he studied theology under Meister Eckhart in Cologne, and he later taught in Constance. He spent years imprisoned because of slander and because of his association with Eckhart, a controversial figure in his day. He was a great spiritual writer, using the pen name Amandus, a noted preacher in Switzerland and along the Upper Rhine, and a spiritual adviser to Dominicans and to the community called the Gottesfreunde. He was given to great austerities.

He died of natural causes on 25 January 1366 at Ulm, Germany. Pope Gregory XVI beatified him in 1831.