Catholic Heroes… Saints Perpetua And Felicity
By DEB PIROCH
“Sanguis martyrum semen christianorum” — Tertullian
- + + There are countless examples of saints martyred together in our ecclesial history. Two shining examples are preserved in the Roman canon of the Mass, Perpetua and Felicity, who died circa 203 under the rule of Septimus.
Perpetua was a noblewoman, her mother and brothers both Christians. Her father was not a Christian and tried hard to have her sacrifice to the gods as the Romans wished her to do, to save her life. Felicity was a slave, pregnant in her eighth month and imprisoned at the same time, along with Revocatus (another slave), Saturninus, and Saturnus. This group would all die together.
Perpetua herself was a young mother, perhaps widowed, with a young infant at the breast. After she was arrested for refusing to reject our Lord and embrace pagan gods, she was imprisoned. We read she had visions, and these had to have been a consolation, for the hardest part of prison for her was missing her baby. Her mother and brother were able to bribe the guards to allow her child to come to her for a time before her execution.
Meanwhile, Felicity would not be executed until after her baby was delivered, as executing the baby before birth was forbidden. She worried she would not give birth in time but two days before the scheduled execution, she did and in her birth pangs the guards mocked her, saying that if she could not stand that, how would she stand up against the pain of her execution?
Amazingly enough, we have a record of her trials from Perpetua herself, most rare from this ancient period. The account was read in early liturgies, and must have greatly strengthened those who suffered under adverse circumstances like her own.
In prison, her brother suggested that she ask our Lord for a vision of her future, and she said she would and tell him on the morrow.
“I saw a ladder of tremendous height made of bronze, reaching all the way to the heavens….To the sides of the ladder were attached all sorts of metal weapons: there were swords, spears, hooks, daggers, and spikes; so that if anyone tried to climb up carelessly or without paying attention, he would be mangled, and his flesh would adhere to the weapons. At the foot of the ladder lay a dragon of enormous size, and it would attack those who tried to climb up and try to terrify them from doing so. And Saturnus was the first to go up [for he was martyred first, saying:] ‘Perpetua, I am waiting for you. But take care; do not let the dragon bite you.’ ‘He will not harm me,’ I said, ‘in the name of Christ Jesus.’ Slowly, as though he were afraid of me, the dragon stuck his head out from underneath the ladder. Then, using it as my first step, I trod on his head and went up.
“Then I saw an immense garden, and in it a gray-haired man sat in shepherd’s garb; tall he was, and milking sheep. And standing around him were many thousands of people clad in white garments. He raised his head, looked at me, and said: ‘I am glad you have come, my child’. . . . I told this to my brother, and we realized that we would have to suffer, and that from now on we would no longer have any hope in this life. [These words are taken from Perpetua’s own account.]”
Before she was sentenced, her father tried hard to impede her fate and get Perpetua to sacrifice to the gods and live for her child, but she would not. She famously said to him: “Father, do you see this vase here, for example, or water pot or whatever? Could it be called by any other name than what it is?” And when he replied with a negative, she finished: “Well, so too I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.”
Their fate was to be thrown to wild beasts in the Colosseum. What fear this must have engendered! And yet, the grace God granted them to face this fate was more than enough. The Romans tried to dress them in the costume of the goddess Ceres, and Perpetua refused saying, in essence, “What do you think we are dying for?” Their captors backed off.
When it was their turn to enter the arena, she sang a psalm as they entered. The men were faced variously with a bear, a leopard, and a boar. The boar gored only its handler, who died a few days later, but did not hurt the soon-to-be martyrs. Revocatus and Saturnus faced the leopard and, while in stocks, a bear. Such “courage” the Romans seem to have had. Saturnus feared the bear, but the bear would no more touch him than the boar, refusing to come out of its cage, and he faced off only with the leopard, as he hoped, which was quicker. After his first attack, bathed in blood, he told a soldier that this should strengthen the soldier’s faith. He asked for the man’s ring, dipped it in his own blood, and handed it back before he died. One wonders about the effect of this relic on the man.
Meanwhile Perpetua and Felicity were stripped naked, and covered in a net, with the intent that a rabid heifer would attack them. The crowd was so offended to see them so shamed, one of them having breasts full of milk, that they booed, and their handlers had to bring them back in and dress them again. Sent back out, both women were at some point tossed by the animal onto the ground. Perpetua seemed almost in a trance, and covered her modesty again by pulling her dress down, she fixed her hair. It was as if to say, one must look proper when offering up one’s life for our Lord!
She saw Felicity on the ground and went to assist her. They stood together, Perpetua not realizing at first that she had been thrown, dazed, till told. But then she saw her brother in the stands, crying out: “You must all stand fast in the faith and love one another, and do not be weakened by what we have gone through!” By this time Saturnus had been mauled and was unconscious and the crowd was restless for blood. It wanted a finish to the “games.” They would be finished off by the gladiators.
But the mob asked that their bodies be brought out into the open that their eyes might be the guilty witnesses of the sword that pierced their flesh. And so, the martyrs got up and went to the spot of their own accord as the people wanted them to, and kissing one another, they sealed their martyrdom with the ritual kiss of peace. The others took the sword in silence and without moving, especially Saturnus, who, being the first to climb the stairway, was the first to die. For once again he was waiting for Perpetua, however, yet to taste more pain.
She screamed as she was struck on the bone; then she took the trembling hand of the young gladiator and guided it to her throat. It was as though so great a woman, feared as she was by the unclean spirit, could not be dispatched unless she herself were willing.
Ah, most valiant and blessed martyrs! Truly are you called and chosen for the glory of Christ Jesus our Lord!
(Taken from The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, translated and edited by Fr. Herbert Musurillo, SJ, Oxford University Press.)
As Pope St. John Paul II said from the Colosseum, let us “pray to the Lord that the cloud of witnesses which surrounds us will help all of us who believe to express with no less courage our own love for Christ, for
Him who is ever alive in His Church: as He was yesterday, and is today, and will be tomorrow and forever!” Amen!