Daily Martyrology for August 28

In 430, at Hippo in North Åfrica, St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the church. Born at Tagaste in what is now Algeria, he studied in Carthage, became a teacher, and spent ten years as an adherent of the Manichean sect. Influenced by his reading of Plato and by Christian monastics, and urged by St. Ambrose and his mother Monica, he was baptized in 387. He returned to Africa and led a monastic life with some companions. He later wrote a monastic rule which influenced St. Benedict; it was adopted by many later religious groups. His theological works have shaped Western Christianity. He was ordained priest in 391 and became bishop of Hippo in 396. He was an active bishop in a time of upheaval, and died during a siege of Hippo by the Vandals.

About 405 in Egypt, St. Moses the Black, an Ethiopian brigand who became a monk at Skete. When some Berbers threatened his monastery, he would not let the monks use force to defend their monastery and was murdered by the raiders.

In 1784, at Mission Carmel in California, Blessed Junipero Serra. Born in Majorca, he became a Franciscan in 1730 and went to America in 1749, where he was a missionary to the Indians of Texas, Mexico and California.

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Our daily martyrology was written by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB. Copyright © 2008 by the Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID 83338.