SAINT FEAST DAY 7 MARCH: ST PERPETUA AND ST FELICITY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 7th of March

WELCOME!

SAINT PERPETUA AND SAINT FELICITY, MARTYRS

Saint Perpetua was 22, of a patrician family; Saint Felicity [Felicitas] was a slave: both were martyred in the public stadium at Carthage, in A.D. 203, during the persecution of Septimus Severus.

PRAYER:

Father,

your love gave the saints Perpetua and Felicity

courage to suffer a cruel martyrdom.

By their prayers, help us to grow in love of you.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

(🎨 Mosaic of St Perpetua)

***

FROM THE BREVIARIUM ROMANUM:

"Because it is for Christ that I suffer."

Perpetua and Felicitas, with Revocatus, Saturnius, and Secundulus, were arrested in Africa during the persecution of Emperor Severus and thrown into a dungeon, where Satyrus was imprisoned with them. Since they were still catechumens, they were baptised there. Then they were condemned to the wild beasts.

One of the jailers asked Felicitas in the midst of labour pains how she would fare in the amphitheatre. She answered, “Now it is I who suffer, but there Another will be in me who will suffer for me because it is for Him that I am to suffer.”

In the amphitheatre [at Carthage, c.203 A.D.] in front of all the people they were scourged, then tossed for some time by a wild cow, lashed, and thrown on the ground. At last on the seventh of March they were killed by sword blows with their companions, who had been attacked by various animals.

V. You have crowned them with glory and honour, O Lord. R. And have set them over the works of your hands.

For theirs is *the kingdom of heaven, who have despised the life of the world, and have attained the rewards of the kingdom, and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

PRAYER: 

Grant, we beseech you, O Lord our God, that we may venerate with unceasing devotion the triumphs of your holy Martyrs, Perpetua and Felicitas; and although we cannot pay them the honour that is their due, may we at least present to them our humble homage. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

– From: An Approved English Translation of the Breviarium Romanum, Burns and Oates, London, 1964