According to tradition, whose historical reliability is unclear, Cosmas and Damian were twins who worked as doctors and were known as the Anargyri (‘the silverless”) on account of their practice of not charging for their services. They brought many of their patients to Christ but were finally condemned to death under Diocletian around the year 300 at Cyrrhus Syria. Their basilica in Rome, not far from the Colosseum, was built in the sixth century by Felix IV and their names appear in the Roman Canon. – CTS New Daily Roman Missal 2012, p 3018
Born as Giovanni Montini in 1897 in the town of Concesio in the Lombardy region of Italy, the future Pope Paul VI was ordained a priest at the age of 22. He served as Archbishop of Milan prior to his election as Bishop of Rome in 1963.
As pope, he oversaw much of the Second Vatican Council, which had been opened by Pope St. John XXIII, and in 1969 promulgated a new Roman Missal. He died in 1978, and was beatified by Pope Francis on 19 Oct 2014.
Apart from his role in the council, Paul VI is most widely know for his landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae, which was published in 1968 and reaffirmed the Church’s teaching against contraception in wake of the sexual revolution. 2018 marked the 50th anniversary the historic encyclical, making the canonisation of the author in October 2018 all the more relevant.
Both miracles attributed to Paul VI’s intercession involve the healing of an unborn child.