• Sts. Mark and Marcellianus (296). Martyr. (Traditional) twin brothers
• THE EUCHARISTIC HEART OF JESUS. (Traditional) Thursday after the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

MARCUS and Marcellianus were twin brothers of an illustrious family in Rome, who had been converted to the faith in their youth and were honorably married. Diocletian ascending the imperial throne in 284, the heathens raised persecutions. These martyrs were thrown into prison, and condemned to be beheaded. Their friends obtained a respite of the execution for thirty days, that they might prevail on them to worship the false gods. Tranquillinus and Martia, their afflicted heathen parents, in company with their sons’ own wives and their little babes, endeavored to move them by the most tender entreaties and tears. St. Sebastian, an officer of the emperor’s household, coming to Rome soon after their commitment, daily visited and encouraged them. The issue of the conferences was the happy conversion of the father, mother, and wives, also of Nicostratus, the public register, and soon after of Chromatius, the judge, who set the Saints at liberty, and, abdicating the magistracy, retired into the country. Marcus and Marcellianus were hid by a Christian officer of the household, in his apartments in the palace; but they were betrayed by an apostate, and retaken. Fabian, who had succeeded Chromatius, condemned them to be bound to two pillars, with their feet nailed to the same. In this posture they remained a day and a night, and on the following day were stabbed with lances.

REFLECTION: We know not what we are till we have been tried. It costs nothing to say we love God above all things, and to show the courage of martyrs at a distance from the danger; but that love is sincere which has stood the proof. “Persecution shows who is a hireling, and who a true pastor,” says St. Bernard.

WORD OF THE DAY

SUMMA THEOLOGICA. The principal doctrinal synthesis in Catholic theology, written by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74). The method used was the application of Aristotelian philosophy in the systematic and rational explanation of dogma and morals, without any substantial modification of the traditional teaching of the Church. Its central theme is God considered under three aspects: 1. he is studied as Being, not only in himself but also outside himself, as the source of all things; 2. he is then seen as the Good that is, as the end of created beings and especially of angels and men; 3. he is finally studied as the Way of humanity to God, not humanity in the abstract, but of the fallen human being who needed an incarnate God to be saved.

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)

June, Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The Sacred Heart of Jesus – Short Meditations for June. June 18 — The Cravings of the Sacred Heart.