A Reflection on Saints Perpetua and Felicity.
Saturday, the 7th, is the Feast of Saints Perpetua and Felicity.
Collect:
O God, the King of Saints, who strengthened your servants Perpetua, Felicity, and their companions to make a good confession and to encourage one another in the time of trial: Grant that we who cherish their blessed memory may share their pure and steadfast faith, and win with them the palm of victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading: Matthew 24:9–14
Jesus said, “They will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come."
In the year 180, we have the first recorded martyrdoms in North Africa, when twelve Christians were tried and put to death for their faith. But something remarkable happened. Instead of stamping out Christianity, persecution only strengthened it. The faith continued to grow. New converts became more and more common.
It is one of the great ironies of Christian history: whenever the powers and principalities have tried to extinguish the faith, they have only succeeded in spreading it. As many have said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. In an attempt to slow the growth of Christianity, the Roman Emperor issued a decree forbidding conversion.
Anyone who became a Christian was required to renounce the faith and honor the Roman gods. If they refused, they were put to death. In the year 203, five Christians in the Roman city of Carthage were arrested while preparing for baptism. Among them were Perpetua and Felicity.
Perpetua was a twenty-two-year-old noblewoman. She was married and had recently given birth to a son whom she was still nursing. Her father was a pagan, but her mother and one of her brothers were Christians. Another brother was preparing for baptism alongside her. Perpetua had encountered Christ and decided to become a Christian. But she was arrested before she could be baptized. Her father came to the prison and pleaded with her to renounce the faith so that she could live and raise her son. Perpetua records their conversation:
“Father, do you see this vessel lying here—this pitcher? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?” And he said, “No.” “Neither can I call myself anything other than what I am—a Christian.”
A few days later she was secretly baptized in prison. While imprisoned, Perpetua longed deeply for her baby. Eventually the infant was brought to her so that she could nurse him.
Felicity, meanwhile, was a slave and also a young woman. She was pregnant at the time of her arrest. While in prison she gave birth to a daughter, whom one of the Christian community immediately adopted.
On the day of their execution, the men were sent into the arena first to be attacked by wild animals: a leopard, a wild boar, and a bear. One of the men, Saturninus, was the last standing. When a leopard struck him and blood poured out, someone in the crowd cried out mockingly, “He is well baptized now!”
Before her own death, Perpetua called out to her brother:
“Stand fast in the faith. Love one another. Do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you.”
Perpetua and Felicity were both young mothers. They loved their newborn children with the tender love that only a mother knows. But they also loved the God whom they had come to know in Christ. And so they were forced to choose. They could reject Christ and live to raise their children. Or they could remain faithful and face death. With extraordinary courage and faith, they remained true to Christ. And in doing so, they fulfilled a deeper kind of motherhood. Because the greatest gift they could give their children was not simply more years of life with them, but a witness of faith. We can only hope that as those children grew, and heard the stories of their mothers’ courage and love for God, they were inspired to follow the same path of faith. For the witness of the martyrs does not end with their deaths. It continues wherever courage, faith, and love of Christ take root in the lives of those who come after them.
