18 JUNE – SAINTS MARK AND MARCELLIAN (Martyrs)

Mark and Marcellian were twin brothers born to a noble family in Rome. They were baptised in their youth and were secretly Christians for many years before being denounced. They were arrested and condemned to be beheaded, but their execution was delayed, their friends obtaining a respite of 30 days in the hope that they could convince them to renounce their faith and worship the state gods. Their parents Tranquillinus and Maria, and their wives and children visited them, in an attempt to break their constancy, but Saint Sebastian also visited them and encouraged them to remain true to Christ. He also succeeded in converting Tranquillinus and Maria, and afterwards by loosening the tongue of Zöe, the wife of Nicostratus (the registrar), converted him also, and Chromatius (an officer of the Prefect of Rome), who set Mark and Marcellian free and resigned his position. Marcus and Marcellian were hidden by a Christian officer named Castulus in his apartments in the palace of Diocletian, but were betrayed by the false Christian Torquatus and were arrested again. They were tortured and killed in 286 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have already met with these noble athletes of today’s feast, for on January 20th, when celebrating Saint Sebastian, the brave defender of holy Church, Mark and Marcellian, appeared at his side as the noblest conquest won by the sainted head of the praetorian guards. There are other heroes likewise gained over by his zealous intrepidity whose names gild the pages of the Martyrology. But these two whose festival we are keeping were the immediate occasion of Sebastian’s leading to God so goodly a troop of valiant Christians. Their conversion prepared Sebastian’s martyrdom by reason of his apostolate in their regard, and their glory eternally redounds to him, around whom in Heaven, they form a resplendent phalanx.

Captivity, torments, and even the sentence of death pronounced on them, had failed to shake the courage of these two brethren. A trial yet more terrible awaited them, namely the sight forced on them of the heart-broken grief caused to all they loved on Earth, by this their sentence of condemnation. For their family not being Christian knew no bounds to sorrow. Their father and mother bent down by years, the wife of each, leading by the hand or in her arms a group of weeping children, all uttering bitterest reproaches against these soldiers of Christ for the destitution in which their coming death would plunge the survivors, such was the dire attack!

Sebastian, profiting by the liberty his position afforded to approach the Christians in prison, was ever their comfort and encourager. He failed not to be present at this scene, for his noble heart fully realised how dangerously severe such a trial must be for souls as yet unscathed by any personal peril. The danger he knew might be imminent at that moment. Wherefore scorning his own safety, he there and then revealed himself a Christian in order to hold out a strengthening hand to the two brethren. Moreover, God lent such wondrous efficacy to his words that they converted even the pagans there assembled. Thus Mark and Marcellian had the joy of beholding those whose piteous complaints had a moment before so painfully thrilled their souls, now applauding their constancy and demanding Baptism.

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THE Holy Ghost filled you with strength, glorious martyrs, and the love which He poured into your hearts changed into exquisite delights, torments that terrify our cowardice. Yet, after all, of how much less account are those tortures that touched but your perishable body, compared with that intense anguish of soul over which you so nobly triumphed! The dire grief of those whom you held dearer far than life, and whom, to all appearance, you needs must leave in hopeless woe, was verily the culminating pitch of your martyrdom. Only such can fail to realise this, who deserve the reproach cast by Saint Paul on the pagans of his day, that they are without affection (Romans i. 32). Yes, when the world once more presents such a hateful spectacle as this, then will be the sign of the last day’s near approach, so says the same Apostle (2 Timothy iii. 1, 3). Nevertheless, human love must needs cede to that of God: “He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me: and he who loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew x. 3, 7). You understood all this, dear martyrs. Your relatives who would separate you from our Lord became but enemies in your eyes (Matthew x. 36). At that very instant, our Jesus who can never let Himself be outdone in generosity, restored these dear ones to you by taking them, through a miracle of grace, together with you and because of your example, to Himself. Thus do you complete for us, the instructions already given by a Julitta and her boy, by a Vitus and his glorious companions. Obtain for us, you victors in such keen trials, an ever growing courage and love proportionate to our increase in the light and knowledge of our duty to God.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Malaga in Spain, the holy martyrs Cyriacus, and the virgin Paula, who were overwhelmed with stones and yielded up their souls to God.

At Tripoli in Phoenicia, in the time of the governor Hadrian, St. Leontius, a soldier, who, through bitter torments, attained to the crown of martyrdom, together with the tribune Hypatius and Theodulus, who he had converted to Christ.

The same day, St. Jetherius, martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian. After enduring fire and other torments he was put to death with the sword.

At Alexandria, the passion of St. Marina, virgin.

At Bordeaux, St. Amandus, bishop and confessor.

At Sacca in Sicily, St. Calogerus, hermit, whose holiness is principally manifested by the deliverance of possessed persons.

At Schongau, St. Elizabeth, virgin, celebrated for her observance of monastic discipline.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.