(d.203) The document from which we learn of these martyrs includes a first-person diary of Vibia Perpetua, a 22-year-old and well-educated noblewoman who was nursing an infant son during her ordeal. Felicity was a pregnant slave woman arrested with Perpetua. They were arrested along with four men in Carthage, Africa, for the crime of converting to Christianity. Felicity gave birth in prison, and one of the men died in custody. The remaining prisoners were led to an amphitheater, scourged, and a boar, a bear, and a leopard were set on the men, and a wild cow on the women. Wounded by the animals, they were put to the sword.
Perpetua’s father begged her to betray her Christianity in order to be spared. All of these martyrs considered it the greatest honor to give their lives for Christ, demonstrating radical surrender and complete trust in God’s will. Are you holding anything back? What would you not give up for Jesus Christ?
“Now it is I that suffer what I suffer; but then there will be another in me, who will suffer for me, because I also am about to suffer for Him” (Saint Felicity).
Reflection by Brad Farmer