Feast Day: March 7th| Mother and Martyr | Patronage: Mothers, Expectant Mothers, Mothers who have lost Sons, Ranchers, Butchers, Carthage, Widows | Attributes: Women standing side by side; Holding Palm of Victory, Cross of Martyrdom; Praying and Singing, Embracing and Giving Kiss of Peace; Attacked by Wild Cow; Halo’s Intertwined; Felicity Pregnant, Dressed as a Servant
We continued to recall St. Perpetua’s Passion, now reading from the final paragraphs added after their martyrdom by a person who, though anonymous here, may have been as famous an early-Christian character as Tertullian.
As for Felicity, the Lord’s favor touched her in this way. She was now in her eighth month (for she was pregnant when she was arrested). As the day of the games drew near, she was in agony, fearing that her pregnancy would spare her (since it was not permitted to punish pregnant women in public), and that she would pour forth her holy and innocent blood afterwards, along with common criminals. But also her fellow martyrs were deeply saddened that they might leave behind so good a friend, their companion, to travel alone on the road to their shared hope. And so, two days before the games, they joined together in one united supplication, groaning, and poured forth their prayer to the Lord. Immediately after their prayer her labor pains came upon her. And when—because of the natural difficulty associated with an eighth-month delivery—she suffered in her labor, one of the assistant jailers said to her: “If you are suffering so much now, what will you do when you are thrown to the beasts which you scorned when you refused to sacrifice?” And she replied: “Now I alone suffer what I am suffering, but then there will be another inside me, who will suffer for me, because I am going to suffer for him.” And she gave birth to a baby girl, whom a certain sister brought up as her own daughter. [Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, XV,Translation by Thomas J. Heffernan, 2012].
I make note, first of all, that Roman Law – even when entirely comfortable with hurling young men and women, naked, to be torn by beasts as public entertainment, and, when still casting a blind-eye towards fathers who would expose until death unwanted infant children – still held that a pregnant woman could not be executed because of the innocence and individual-dignity of the child in her womb. Yet though much could be said on the inconsistency of Roman Law as regards human life and dignity (not to mention the laws of our own country), I choose instead to dwell again on one important word here used for the first time in Christian literature: “fellow-martyrs” (conmartyres).
Notice that Felicity has also chosen to hold her Christian identity as even more important than her motherhood. She, with all the longings and hopes of a pregnant mother, still yearns for the grace of martyrdom even more. Yet her and Perpetua’s desire is not simply to die for Christ, but to die together for Christ. So many words in these their final moments depict their union: “fellow martyrs … so good a friend, their companion, … shared hope … joined together in one united supplication … a certain sister.” Remarkably, these two saints who died on March 7th have trumped no less a saint than St. Thomas Aquinas, who also died on March 7th (we celebrate him instead on his earthly birthday, January 28th). The Angelic Theologian tells us of the splendor of Christian Friendship: “thus there is a twofold grace: one whereby man himself is united to God, and this is called sanctifying grace; the other is that whereby one man cooperates with another in leading him to God, and this gift is called gratuitous grace.” [Summa Theologicae, I.II, 111.1.Respondeo]. BUT, it is Perpetua and Felicity who show us the splendor of Christian friendship, emboldening each other all the way to their final self-gift!
But they are not only a twosome enduring the arena: “Now I alone suffer what I am suffering, but then there will be another inside me, who will suffer for me, because I am going to suffer for him.” It seems that St. Paul’s words have transfigured these women’s courageous hearts: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” [1 Cor 13:1-3] These women speak eloquently; they understand the scriptures and have received baptism and faith; they have converted the hearts of their intransient jailers and have even given up their bodies and every human relationship … but all of this would be vain without love, without Christ within them. Truly, at the end, these two were joined by Christ in their final sufferings. “Then [Perpetua] got up; and when she saw Felicity crushed to the ground, she went over to her, gave her hand and helped her up. And the two stood side by side.” [XX]
– Fr. Dominic Rankin cannot help but remind all of us these women, though recently baptized, had not yet received Holy Communion. They were imprisoned for the entirety of their Christian lives, and can only describe their yearning for Christ’s self-gift as food. Perpetua recounts for us a dream she had while in prison: “And I saw an enormous garden and a white-haired man sitting in the middle of it dressed in shepherd’s clothes, a big man, milking sheep. And standing around were many thousands dressed in white. And he raised his head, looked at me, and said: ‘You are welcome here, child.’ And he called me, and from the cheese that he had milked he gave me as it were a mouthful. And I received it in my cupped hands and ate it. And all those standing around said: ‘Amen.’ And I woke up at the sound of their voice, still eating some unknown sweet. And at once I told this to my brother. And we knew we would suffer, and we ceased to have any hope in this world” [IV].