Daily Martyrology for September 30

In 420, at Bethlehem, St. Jerome, doctor of the church. He was born to a wealthy family and received an excellent education; Aelius Donatus, the grammarian, was one of his teachers. He spent years traveling, and in 370 became a monk at Aquileia. He was quarrelsome, and left in 374 for Antioch, where he spent four years as a hermit. He learned Hebrew from a converted Jew who had become a monk. He then studied the Bible under St. Gregory Nazianzen (January 2) in Constantinople. In 382 he went to Rome, worked for Pope Damasus (December 11) and began a revision of the Latin Bible. In Rome a group of Christian women gathered around him and lived a quasi-monastic life. In 385 he departed for Palestine, where some Roman women joined him in Bethlehem. He was involved in a number of controversies, particularly over the virginity of Mary and the teachings of Origen.

About 330, in Armenia, St. Gregory the Enlightener, bishop. He was born in 260, when Armenia was under Persian occupation. In 314, he was appointed bishop. He created a native Armenian clergy and organized the church. In 330 he withdrew to a hermitage.

In 1876, in the region of Turin, Blessed Frederick Albert. He was a royal chaplain for some years, then became a parish priest in a large parish outside of Turin. He worked long and hard in service of his people. He talked Pope Pius IX out of making him a bishop. He died after a fall from scaffolding in a church he was working on; it was to be the center of a farming commune where young people would cultivate church land.

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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.