{"id":2660,"date":"2007-03-07T09:29:50","date_gmt":"2007-03-07T09:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/perpetua-and-felicity.html"},"modified":"2007-03-07T09:29:50","modified_gmt":"2007-03-07T09:29:50","slug":"perpetua-and-felicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/perpetua-and-felicity.html","title":{"rendered":"Perpetua and Felicity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is the feast of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity – the account of their martyrdom is found here.<\/a><\/p>\n

More:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Of the several authentic accounts of early Christian martyrdom that have been preserved, none is so detailed as that of Saints Perpetua and Felicity of Carthage, and four Christian men.  They died under the decree of the Emperor Septimius Severus.  Severus was trying to stamp out Christianity by preventing conversion.  Here the two women and three men arrested were catechumens, i.e., people under instruction for Christian baptism.  The fourth man was Saturus, the priest who had been instructing them.  Part of the account of their imprisonment was written by Perpetua herself; a second part by Saturus; and some eyewitness wrote the beginning and the conclusion<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mike Aquilina remarks:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Composed by Perpetua herself, it is certainly the most detailed account of a woman\u2019s experience of Christianity during those formative years (she died in North Africa in 203 A.D.). Perpetua\u2019s narrative concerns itself with many experiences we don\u2019t often find in the Fathers \u2014 childbirth and breastfeeding, for example. We also glimpse how a woman exercised spiritual leadership in the ancient Church. Perpetua\u2019s Passion is an important early witness for the study of liturgy, sacramental theology, and the doctrine of purgatory. It is one of the key texts discussed in one of my favorite books, Robin Darling Young\u2019s In Procession Before the World: Martyrdom As Public Liturgy in Early Christianity<\/em><\/span><\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Mike’s interview about Perpetua and Felicity with the wonderful folks at KVSS in Omaha will be posted here soon.<\/a><\/p>\n

From Catholic Culture, patronage and symbols associated with the saints:<\/a><\/p>\n

Patron: Perpetua<\/strong> \u2014 Cattle, death of children, martyrs. <\/p>\n

Felicity<\/strong> \u2014 Death of children; martyrs; sterility; to have male children; widows. <\/p>\n

Symbols:<\/strong> Perpetua<\/strong> \u2014 Wild cow; spiked ladder guarded by a dragon. <\/p>\n

Felicity<\/strong> \u2014 Seven swords; cauldron of oil and sword; sword with seven heads; eight palms.<\/p>\n

Speaking of audio and the liturgy and such, don’t forget Michael’s mp3 recordings of the Office of Readings, there for you every day, and as a subscription, if you like.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is the feast of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity – the account of their martyrdom is found here. More: Of the several authentic accounts of early Christian martyrdom that have been preserved, none is so detailed as that of Saints Perpetua and Felicity of Carthage, and four Christian men.  They died under the decree of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPerpetua and Felicity - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/perpetua-and-felicity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Perpetua and Felicity - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is the feast of Sts. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}