Saint of the day March 7, 2025

Sts. Perpetua and Felicity were martyrs who lived during the early persecution of the Church. Perpetua and Felicity lived very different lives before their eventual martyrdom. Perpetua was a well-educated noblewoman while Felicity was a slave woman. They became acquainted in prison, awaiting their death for being Christians. The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity is Perpetua’s diary of their time in prison together before their martyrdom. Being from the early 200s, it is one of the oldest surviving first person writings of the Church.

Perpetua belonged to a noble family of Carthage. Her father was a pagan, but her mother may have been a Christian. With her in prison was her baby son. Her companion, Felicitas, also referred to as Felicity, was married to a slave and was expecting her first child when they were arrested. The anti-Christian edict of the Emperor Severus demanded the death penalty for being a Christian.

While in prison, Perpetua experienced several visions. She interpreted these as indicating that she and her companions must suffer and give up the joys of this world in exchange for the only true joy – that of being with God in heaven. Felicitas suffered from a great fear. It was against the law for a woman with a child to be exposed for punishment. Felicitas feared that her martyrdom would be delayed because of her condition. Two days before the persecutions she gave birth to a little girl. The next day the children of both mothers were taken from them.

On the infamous day, the martyrs–to be proceeded with joy into the amphitheater and the ordeal began. The punishment called for the two women being attacked by a wild heifer. Felicitas and Perpetua stood side by side and received repeated maulings from the wild beast. After a brief rest, the crowd demanded more blood. When Felicitas and Perpetua heard this they proceeded to the center of the amphitheater where the gladiators awaited them. The Saints embraced, kissed each other, and received the sword. Our saintly patrons died for Christ with serenity and even joy.

From the martyrdom –narratives of the early Church, we learn about the barbarity to which these saints were subjected. Also we see their Christian patience as derived from a diary that was written by St. Perpetua while she was in prison.

The diary reveals that three men and two women had been arrested for the crime of being “Christians”. The two women were Felicitas and Perpetua. One of the men was probably a blood brother of Perpetua and another of the men was the slave, husband of Felicitas. All five of them were “catechumens”, the name given to those preparing for Baptism.

Reflection

Perpetua and Felicity were both new young mothers at the time of their martyrdom. They loved their newborn babies with tender love. But they also loved their God Whom they had both recently come to know. They were forced to choose. Either reject Christ and be there to raise their babies or remain Christian and leave their babies. With heroic courage and faith, they remained true to both. They remained faithful to Christ, dying as martyrs, and they fulfilled their greatest motherly duty by giving heroic witnesses of faith to their babies. We can only hope that as their children grew and were told the stories of their mothers’ love of God, those children were inspired and sought to imitate their mothers’ Christian faith.
Place yourself in that same situation. Would you have had the courage to face death? Would you be able to stay true to your profession of faith under such extreme emotional and familial pressures? Pray to these saintly mothers and be reminded that the greatest gift we can pass onto others is the witness of our faith in Christ. Life is empty unless Christ is loved and professed, and death loses its sting when our lives are Christ’s.