Henry Suso

Blessed Henry Suso, O.P.
Servant of the Eternal Wisdom
Religious, priest and mystic
Born	21 March 1295 Free Imperial City of Überlingen, Holy Roman Empire
Died	January 25, 1366(1366-01-25) (aged 70) Free Imperial City of Ulm, Holy Roman Empire
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church (Dominican Order)
Beatified	1831 by Pope Gregory XVI
Feast	23 January (previously 2 March)

Henry Suso, O.P. (also called Amandus, a name adopted in his writings, and Heinrich Seuse in German), was a German Dominican friar and the most popular vernacular writer of the fourteenth century (when considering the number of surviving manuscripts). Suso is thought to have been born on March 21, 1295. An important author in both Latin and Middle High German, he is also notable for defending Meister Eckhart's legacy after Eckhart was posthumously condemned for heresy in 1329. He died in Ulm on 25 January 1366, and was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1831.

Suso was born Heinrich von Berg, a member of the ruling family of Berg. He was born in either the Free imperial city of Überlingen on Lake Constance or nearby Constance, on 21 March 1295 (or perhaps on that date up to 1297-9). Later, out of humility and devotion to his mother, he took her family name, which was Sus (or Süs). At 13 years of age he was admitted to the novitiate of the Dominican Order at their priory in Constance. After completing that year of probation, he advanced to do his preparatory, philosophical, and theological studies there.

In the prologue to his Life, Suso recounts how, after about five years in the monastery (in other words, when he was about 18 years old), he experienced a conversion to a deeper form of religious life through the intervention of Divine Wisdom. He made himself "the Servant of Eternal Wisdom", which he identified with the divine essence and, in more specific terms, with divine Eternal Wisdom made man in Christ. From this point forward in his account of his spiritual life, a burning love for Eternal Wisdom dominated his thoughts and controlled his actions; his spiritual journey culminated in a mystical marriage to Christ in the form of the Eternal Wisdom.