Today the Church celebrates the martyrdom of these two men who were killed about the year 303. At that time the Church was being persecuted by the Roman emperor Diocletian. It was the period just before Constantine made the Church legal, and the Catholics were hiding in the catacombs. They kept a written record of their martyrs (available at Amazon.com). The Holy Spirit was very active among the Catholics of the period, and Peter (while imprisoned) had exorcised an evil spirit from the daughter of his jailer. It was so impressive an exorcism that the jailer converted, released Peter, and Peter took him and his daughter to Marcellinus, a priest who baptized the jailer, all his family, and his neighbors. The jailer's boss (a judge) was not happy at this conversion story, and had Marcellinus and Peter tortured and murdered for their faith. Just a few years later the Holy Spirit converted Constantine and the martyrs have been publicly venerated by the Church ever since. What an amazing group of believers this Church must have been! Facing torture and death, and performing miracles some 300 years after Christ and the apostles. The Holy Spirit was alive and active within this group so convincingly that even the emperor Constantine eventually became a believer, and had to acknowledge the true power of the Christian God in spite of "political correctness". This is the same Holy Spirit and powerful God that protects and guides the Church through all the ages in spite of the human weaknesses and demonic attacks against its individual members. Too bad that the exorcism of the jailer's daughter isn't available on You Tube!
Read the story at http://www.catholicculture.org/lit/calendar/day.cfm?date=2007-06-02
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