Sts. Perpetua and Felicity
Patron of mothers, expectant mothers, ranchers, butchers
Saint Perpetua, a young Roman matron of Carthage with an infant at her breast, and her slave Felicity, eight months pregnant, were thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheater on 7 March 203, during the persecution of Septimius Severus. The diary Perpetua kept in prison is the oldest surviving Christian writing by a woman and one of the most moving documents of the early Church: it records her visions, her arguments with her pagan father, and her unshakable peace. Felicity gave birth in her cell two days before the games. They walked to their deaths singing, and their names are still spoken in every Roman Eucharistic Prayer.