Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/March 7
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Saints Perpetua and Felicitas are two 3rd century Christian martyrs venerated as saints. St. Perpetua was a 22-year old married noblewoman, with a nursing child, while her co-martyr St. Felicitas or Felicity, an expectant mother, was her slave.
It was in Carthage, in the year 203, during the persecutions ordered by the Emperor Septimius Severus, that five catechumens were arrested for their faith. The group consisted of a slave named Revocatus, his fellow slave Felicitas, who was expecting the birth of a child, two free men, Saturninus and Secundulus, and a matron of twenty-two, Vivia Perpetua, wife of a man of good position and mother of a small infant. St. Perpetua's father was a pagan, her mother and two brothers Christians, one of the brothers being a catechumen. These five prisoners were soon joined by one Saturus, who seems to have been their instructor in the faith (catechist) and who now chose to share their punishment. At first they were all kept under strong guard in a private house. St. Perpetua wrote a vivid account of what happened. Their sufferings while in prison, the angry and then despairing attempts of St. Perpetua's father to induce her to renounce Christianity, the vicissitudes of the martyrs before their execution, the visions of Saturus and Perpetua in their dungeons, were all committed to writing by the last two, in a genre of text that is technically called a "Passion." Saint Perpetua's account is apparently historical; it is the earliest surviving text written by a Christian woman.
By order of Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211), all imperial subjects were forbidden under severe penalties to become Christians or Jews. Only recent converts were affected.[1] In consequence of this decree, these five catechumens at Carthage were seized and cast into prison. After their arrest, but before being led away to prison, all five were baptized.
The trial of the six confessors took place, before the Procurator Hilarianus. All six resolutely confessed their Christian faith. St. Perpetua's father, carrying her child in his arms, approached her and attempted, for the last time, to induce her to apostatize; the procurator also remonstrated with her, but in vain. She refused to sacrifice to the gods for the safety of the emperor. The procurator thereupon had the father removed by force; in the process he was struck with a whip.
The Christians were then condemned to be torn to pieces by wild beasts, for which they gave thanks to God.
Attributes: Martyrs
Patronage: Mothers, Expectant Mothers
Prayer:
