The Darling of God
The church’s sanctoral calendar of saints and martyrs holds up the examples of those who have remained steadfast in the faith through their confession and even martyrdom. Perpetua and Felicitas are two such women who have been remembered since the earliest centuries of the Church. Their story might be from centuries ago, but it is unique in that the account of their lives comes to us from Perpetua herself, whose diary we still have today in The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity. For their example and steadfastness even to death, we give thanks to Jesus for Perpetua and Felicitas on March 7th.
Perpetua and Felicitas were born in northern Africa under reign of Emperor Severus who declared the Christian faith illegal. Perpetua, just 22 years of age and a new wife and mother, was born to a Christian mother and an unbelieving Father. Her diary picks up with Perpetua in jail, and her father is there adamantly pleading with her to abandon her confession in order to avert his own sorrow and that of her child. Perpetua asks him while motioning toward a pot: can you call it anything other than it is? “So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.”
Perpetua and Felicitas were both catechumens—people preparing for baptism and being instructed in the faith—along with Revocatus, Secundulus, and Saturninus, who were under the instruction of their catechist, Saturus. Perpetua had recently given birth to her infant child and records the distress she feels being away from him and the discomfort it causes her to go hours without nursing him. To her great joy, she is reunited with him for a time in prison, making the prison her palace. Yet, she is told in a dream that she will soon meet martyrdom, so she simultaneously shuns the things of the world, even her father and child, and makes provisions for her baby in the care of her mother.
Felicitas, a slave girl, is also a mother but has not yet delivered her child of eight months in utero. As Perpetua records, Felicitas and the company of Christians pray fervently that she might deliver before they meet their death so that she would not be prevented from going to her martyrdom, for even though she was a Christian, the law forbade the public execution of a pregnant woman. The Lord answered her prayers, so Felicitas delivered her baby girl three days before their final trials and death. She was allowed to suffer alongside her fellow catechumens.
Perpetua (who was baptized before her imprisonment), Felicitas, and the other catechumens died in the arena in Cathage in the year 203 after scourging, ravaging by lions and other beasts, and finally the sword. In their final moments, Perpetua and Felicitas embraced each other and exchanged the kiss of peace before being driven through with the sword. The occasion for their death happened to be a birthday celebration for Caesar Geta, an ironic setting as the anniversary of a worldly birth was contrasted with the martyrs’ birth into eternity through the baptism of blood and the sealing of their life eternal with Christ.
Brief History
Perpetua’s story was finished after her death by an eyewitness and immediately entered the public memory, causing her to be included in the Christian calendar of 354 and commemorated on March 7th from the fourth century onwards. This makes Perpetua and Felicity some of the earliest martyrs on the sanctoral calendar. The Roman Catholic calendar has since moved their date to the March 6th, but the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has preserved the traditional date as it is found in Loehe’s Martyrologium.
According to the Reverend William Weedon, Perpetua and Felicitas make a subtle appearance in our Lutheran Service Book. In hymn 661, The Son of Man Goes Forth to War, written by Reginald Heber who was an Anglican bishop but whose hymn we sing as an encouragement to be one who “patient bears his cross below” and thus “follows in His train.” Weedon holds that these women, “the matron and the maid,” are such examples. Thanks be to God!
A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Savior’s throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the steep ascent of heav’n
Through peril, toil, and pain.
O God, to us may grace be giv’n
To follow in their train!
–Lutheran Service Book 661
Collect
O God, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God: the same faith displayed in the triumphs of Thy holy Martyrs, Perpetua and Felicitas, that, we may be likewise resplendent in Thy grace; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost: ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Lessons
Epistle
Gospel
Resources
Issues, Etc. interview with the Rev. Dr. William Weinrich on Ss. Perpetua and Felicitas
Issues, Etc. interview with the Rev. Will Weedon on Ss. Perpetua and Felicitas
Propers found in Daily Divine Service Book: A Lutheran Daily Missal, edited by the Rev. Heath Curtis
References:
1. Weedon, William. Celebrating the Saints. Concordia Publishing House. 2016.
Images:
1. Church martyrs, with in the foreground Sts Felicitas and Perpetua, after the fresco executed in San Stefano Rotondo by Niccolò CircignanItaly, ca. 1580.
2. Saint Perpetua, Saints Satyr, Revocat, Satornil, Secundus and Saint Filicitata, Miniature Minology of Basil II. Constantinople. 985 Vatican Library. Rome 985.
3. Mosaic detail in the Saints Perpetua and Felicity Chapel, The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
[…] we mentioned in the full post about the third century martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, the diary of Perpetua has survived the centuries and is available for Christians to read today, […]