ST FELICITY OF ROME - 23 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 23rd of November

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST FELICITY OF ROME, MARTYR

The earliest list of the Roman feasts of martyrs, known as the "Depositio Martyrum" and dating from the time of Pope Liberius mentions seven martyrs whose feast was kept on July 10. Their remains had been deposited in four different catacombs, viz. in three cemeteries on the Via Salaria and in one on the Via Appia. Gregory the Great refers to them in his "Homiliae super Evangelia" that all seven were sons of Felicitas, a noble Roman lady. 

According to these Acts Felicitas and her seven sons were imprisoned because of their Christian Faith, at the instigation of pagan priests, during the reign of Emperor Antoninus. Before the prefect Publius they adhered firmly to their religion, and were delivered over to four judges, who condemned them to various modes of death. The division of the martyrs among four judges corresponds to the four places of their burial. 

THEY WERE BURIED IN FOUR DIFFERENT PLACES

St Felicitas herself was buried in the catacomb of Maximus on the Via Salaria, beside Silanus.

These Acts were regarded as genuine by Ruinart, and even distinguished modern archaeologists have considered them, though not in their present form corresponding entirely to the original, yet in substance based on genuine contemporary records. 

Recent investigations, however, have shown this opinion to be hardly tenable. The earliest recension of these Acts, edited by Ruinart, does not antedate the sixth century, and appears to be based not on a Roman, but on a Greek original.

BASED ON A GREEK ORIGINAL

Moreover, apart from the present form of the Acts, various details have been called in question. 

Thus, if Felicitas were really the mother of the seven martyrs honoured on July 10, it is strange that her name does not appear in the well-known fourth-century Roman calendar. Her feast is first mentioned in the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum", but on a different day  (November 23). 

It is, however, historically certain that she, as well as the seven martyrs called her sons in the Acts suffered for the Christian Faith. 

HER BODY RESTED IN THE CATACOMB OF MAXIMUS

From a very early date her feast was solemnly celebrated in the Roman Church on November 23, for on that day Gregory the Great delivered a homily in the basilica that rose above her tomb. Her body then rested in the catacomb of Maximus; in that cemetery on the Via Salaria all Roman itineraries, or guides to the burial-places of martyrs, locate her burial-place, specifying that her tomb was in a church above this catacomb, and that the body of her son Silanus was also there. 

IT WAS REDISCOVERED IN 1885

The crypt where Felicitas was laid to rest was later enlarged into a subterranean chapel, and was rediscovered in 1885. A seventh-century fresco is yet visible on the rear wall of this chapel, representing in a group Felicitas and her seven sons, and overhead the figure of Christ bestowing upon them the eternal crown.

HISTORICAL REFERENCES TO ST FELICITAS

Certain historical references to St Felicitas and her sons antedate the aforesaid Acts, e.g. a fifth-century sermon of St Peter Chrysologus and a metrical epitaph either written by Pope Damasus (who died in A.D. 384) or composed shortly after his time and suggested by his poem in praise of the martyr:

Discite quid meriti praestet pro rege feriri;

Femina non timuit gladium, cum natis obivit,

Confessa Christum meruit per saecula nomen.

[Learn how meritorious it is to die for the King (Christ). This woman feared not the sword, but perished with her sons. She confessed Christ and merited an eternal renown.] 

AN ANCIENT ROMAN TRADITION

We possess, therefore, confirmation for an ancient Roman tradition, independent of the Acts, to the effect that the Felicitas who reposed in the catacomb of Maximus, and whose feast the Roman Church commemorated November 23, suffered martyrdom with her sons; it does not record, however, any details concerning these sons. 

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)