Martyrs of Carthage · Feast: 7 March
Open in the Daily Word app“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18
Perpetua and Felicity died for Christ at Carthage in North Africa, in present-day Tunisia, on 7 March 203, under the emperor Septimius Severus, whose decree was directed against new converts. We know their story from one of the most precious documents of the early Church, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity. It contains Perpetua's own prison diary, the account of a vision by the catechist Saturus, and the words of an editor who wrote down how they died.
Vibia Perpetua was about twenty-two, a well-born and educated young married woman with an infant son at the breast. Felicity was a slave and was expecting a child. They were catechumens, arrested with Revocatus, Saturninus and Secundulus, and they were baptised shortly after their arrest. Saturus, who had instructed them, gave himself up so that he could share their fate.
Perpetua's father, a pagan who loved her dearly, came again and again to beg her to give up her faith, for his sake and for her child's. She suffered deeply for him, but she would not deny Christ. In the prison she had visions: a narrow ladder reaching to heaven with a dragon at its foot, her dead young brother Dinocrates healed through her prayer, and a contest in which she overcame the devil. Felicity feared that she would be held back from dying with her friends, since the law would not allow a pregnant woman to be executed. Two days before the games, after the prayers of the others, she gave birth to a daughter, and a Christian woman took the child as her own.
On the day of the games they went into the amphitheatre with joyful faces. Perpetua and Felicity were thrown down by a wild cow, and Perpetua got up and helped Felicity to her feet. They gave each other the kiss of peace, and then the martyrs were killed by the sword. The names of Felicity and Perpetua are still proclaimed in the Roman Canon of the Mass, and St Augustine preached on their feast at Carthage.
Perpetua loved her father and child, and she loved Christ first.
In Christ a noblewoman and a slave girl were sisters.
Even under attack Perpetua stopped to lift up her friend.
New believers can teach long-time Christians.
When her father begged her to deny her faith, Perpetua pointed to a water jar and asked whether it could be called by any other name than what it was. He said no. Then neither can I, she said, be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.
When Felicity cried out in the pain of childbirth, a jailer mocked her and asked what she would do when she faced the beasts. She replied that now she herself was suffering, but on that day another would be in her, who would suffer for her because she would suffer for him.
The account says that Perpetua, wounded by a trembling young gladiator who struck badly, took his hand and guided the sword to her own throat. The editor says that perhaps so great a woman could not have been killed unless she herself willed it.
Stand fast in the faith and love one another, and do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you.
St Perpetua, to her brother and the catechumens, Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, in substance
We can be called nothing other than what we are.
Baptism overturns every human rank.
Present sufferings are small beside it (Romans 8:18).
Dear friends, we hear the names of Felicity and Perpetua in the Roman Canon, and we may not stop to think who they were. They were two young mothers. One was a lady of good family with a baby at her breast. The other was a slave, who gave birth in prison two days before she died. Perpetua kept a diary, and we can still read it today, in her own words.
Her hardest trial was not the beasts. It was her father, an old man weeping at her feet, begging her to think of him and of her son. Who among us would not have been shaken? She pointed to a jar and said that a thing cannot be called other than what it is: I am a Christian. There are times when we too are asked, gently, by those we love, to be a little less Christian. Perpetua shows us how to love them and remain faithful.
And see them in the arena. The slave and the lady, whom the world had kept far apart, stood together. When Felicity was thrown down, Perpetua lifted her up. Baptism had made them sisters. How do we treat the people in our parish and in our homes who have less than we do? Paul tells us that present sufferings cannot be compared with the glory to come (Romans 8:18). They believed it.
Today, at this Holy Mass / Holy Qurbana, the same Lord for whom they died is with us. Let us pray for Christians who suffer for their faith today, and for mothers who carry heavy burdens. Let us ask Sts Perpetua and Felicity to help us stand fast in the faith and love one another. Amen.
O God, for love of whom Sts Perpetua and Felicity defied their persecutors and the torment of death, grant through their prayers that we may hold to you above all things, love one another without distinction, and grow in love for you. Amen.