Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, Early Church Martyrs

Optional Memorial - March 7th

Women have always been important witnesses to the faith and to the sacredness and value of human life. On March 7th the Church honors Saints Perpetua and Felicity, two young mothers of the 3rd century who were martyred because they refused to renounce their Christian beliefs. They are mentioned in the first Eucharistic prayer at Mass and where highly venerated by the early Church.

Saint Perpetua was born around 181 A.D. She was a 20-year-old married, well-educated noblewoman, who followed the path of her mother and was baptized a Christian. Her co-martyr, Felicity, was an expectant mother and catechumen who according to tradition was Perpetua’s slave. They both suffered at Carthage in the Roman province of Africa during the reign of Emperor Septimus in 203 A.D. After their arrest and imprisonment, Perpetua and Felicity were led to the amphitheater together alongside fellow professed Christians Revocatus, Felicitas, Saturninus, Secundulus and Saturus. There, Perpetua and Felicity were violently scourged, exposed to the fury of raging beasts (gored), and finally martyred by the sword.

The Breviary relates the following anecdote from the Roman Martyrology: "Now the day had arrived when they were to be thrown to the wild beasts. Felicitas began to be sorrowful because she feared she would have to wait longer than her companions. For eight months she had been pregnant and therefore, according to Roman law, could not be executed before the birth of the child. But the prayers of her fellow sufferers hastened her time and she gave birth to a baby girl.

While she was suffering from the pains of childbirth, one of the guards called out to her, "If you are suffering so much now, what will you do when you are thrown to the wild beasts?" "Now I suffer," she answered, "but there Another will be in me, who will suffer for me, because I will suffer for Him." When she was in travail she had sorrow, but when she was set before the wild beasts she rejoiced."

Almighty God, at the urging of whose love the Martyrs Saints Perpetua and Felicity defied their persecutors and overcame the torment of earth, grant, we ask, by their prayers, that we may ever grow in your love. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, pray for us!