Daily Martyrology for September 28

In 929, St. Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia. His father died and he was raised by his Christian grandmother St. Ludmila. His mother, a pagan who converted when she married, regained control of her son by having Ludmila strangled. Wenceslas assumed rule and exiled his mother. He was a just and decisive ruler. His brother Boleslas had him murdered on the way to church. He is the "good King Wenceslas" of the Christmas carol.

In 419, in Palestine, St. Eustochium. She was the daughter of St. Paula (January 26) and a disciple of St. Jerome (September 30), who wrote her a number of letters which survive. Eustochium went with her mother to Palestine and helped her superintend the monasteries she founded in Bethlehem. She learned Greek and Hebrew and assisted Jerome in translating the Bible.

In 782, in Germany, St. Lioba. She was a relative of St. Boniface and, like him, was born and raised in England. She became a nun at Wimborne, where she impressed people with her single-mindedness and enthusiasm for learning. In 748 Boniface requested nuns to help with his evangelization, and she and St. Walburga (February 25) were among the thirty nuns sent to help him. She was abbess of the monastery Tauberbischofsheim and founded a number of others. She was a patient, warm and intelligent woman who urged her monks to live moderate lives and required that they learn to read Latin.

In 1494, in Pavia, Blessed Bernardino of Feltre. He studied at Padua. When he met St. James of the March (November 28), a disciple of St. Bernardino of Siena (May 13), he joined the Observant Franciscans. He became a renowned preacher, straightforward and uncompromising. He was very opposed to usury, and to counter the predations of unscrupulous lenders he established low-rate loan institutions (called monte di pietà) for the poor.

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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.