JUNE 26TH, SS. JOHN AND PAUL, MARTYRS

Month in honor of the Most Sacred Heart of OLJC.

John and Paul were two Roman brethren, the godly and trustworthy servants of Constantia, daughter of Constantine. At her death they spent in feeding Christ's poor the property which she left them. Julian the Apostate asked them to enter his household, but they bravely answered that they would not be servants to one who had run away from the service of Jesus Christ. Julian gave them ten days to consider on their choice, whether, at the end of that time, they would cleave to him, and sacrifice to Jupiter, or most surely die. This interval they spent in distributing to poor creatures all that remained of their goods, that they might be quite free to depart hence to the Lord, and so succoured many by whom they have long since been received into everlasting habitations. On the tenth day Terentian, Prefect of the Praetorian Cohort, was sent to them, bringing with him the image of Jupiter. He explained to them the command of the Emperor, that they should worship the said image or die. They were engaged in prayer, but answered him that for their loyalty to Christ, Whom their understanding acknowledged and their mouths confessed to be God, they felt no hesitation in choosing to suffer death. Terentian, to avoid the uproar, which might have been caused by their public execution, caused their heads to be cut off at home where they then were. They lifted up their last earthly testimony upon the 26th day of June, in the year of our Lord 362. They were privately buried, and a story set about that they had been sent into exile. The fact of their death was made generally known by the unclean spirits by whom the bodies of many were tormented, and among others that of Terentian's own son, who was possessed with a devil, and delivered by being brought to the grave of the Martyrs. By this miracle he was led to believe in Christ, and so likewise was his father Terentian, who is said to have been the writer of the life of these blessed Martyrs.