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| St. Perpetua of Carthage (Feast Day - February 1) |
By Protopresbyter Fr. George Papavarnavas
Saint Perpetua was born in Carthage of Africa toward the end of the 2nd century AD. She came from a noble family and had two brothers. She received an excellent education and made a good marriage. At the age of twenty-two, when she was martyred for Christ, she had a small child whom she was nursing. She was imprisoned because she was a Christian, and while she was in the dungeon-like prison her father visited her and tried, at first with gentle words, to persuade her to deny Christ in order to save her life, so that she might remain with her husband and child. But later, when he saw that she would not deny Christ and remained firm in her faith, he attacked her with savage fury.
While in prison she was baptized together with her fellow prisoners: Saturus, Revocatus, Saturninus, Secundulus, and Eutychia (Felicitas). After her baptism she experienced temptations, but also many blessings. One of these blessings was that two deacons “interceded” with the prison authorities, and when the latter received the money offered to them, they transferred her to a cell with better conditions and allowed her to nurse her child.
Her father, who was the only one in her family unable to understand her, again tried to persuade her to renounce her faith. He even appeared in court holding her child in his arms, begging her to have pity on it. This was a harsh temptation, which she overcame by the grace of God and the strength of her faith and spiritual courage. In the end, her child was taken by her sister, who had also come to believe in Christ and was a catechumen. And the child of Felicitas, who was born in prison, was taken by a devout Christian woman. God’s Providence arranged everything in the best possible way.
In the amphitheater they set upon her a savage ox, which wounded her, but she did not feel the pain and kept asking when the wild beasts would come. And when they assured her that they had already come, then, as if awakening from a stupor, she realized it from her wounds, the blood, and her torn garments.
She was put to death by beheading. Indeed, because the executioner was unskilled, she herself took his hand holding the sword and guided it to her neck. In this way she delivered her holy soul “into the hands of the living God.”
Her life and conduct give us occasion to emphasize the following:
First, Christ, as we read in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 10, verses 37–38, said: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”
In the lives of the saints, which are in fact the Gospel put into practice, we see that the saints proved themselves worthy of Christ’s love, because they loved Him more than their parents, their brothers and sisters, and their children, and therefore did not deny Him. Despite severe temptations, they confessed Him with boldness, bore their cross with courage, and followed Him to the end. For His love they abandoned everything and endured pains, labors, demonic assaults, inhuman tortures; they “humbled themselves unto death,” and for this reason God “highly exalted” them and granted them the gift of adoption, making them His children and heirs of His eternal Kingdom.
God does not ask those who love Him not to love their relatives. Of course they should love them; however, this love must not be greater than their love for Him, because that leads to the denial of God. Besides, the more one loves God, the more one also loves one’s fellow human beings — not only parents, siblings, and children, but even enemies — with a selfless, sacrificial love, since the one who loves God is also a lover of mankind.
To take up one’s cross and follow Christ means, according to the teaching of the Church and as expressed by Saint John Chrysostom, to die daily for Christ: to crucify oneself, that is, the “old man with his passions and desires.” In other words, to struggle to overcome one’s passions and not to satisfy sinful desires; not to resist the will of God by presenting seemingly reasonable arguments, but to obey God and allow Him to direct one’s life, so as to lead one to spiritual rebirth and salvation.
He says: “If you love your Lord, die as He did. Crucify yourself, even if no one crucifies you. And the cross is the struggle against your wickedness and jealousy. You crucify your ego when you refuse to satisfy your evil desires. You hang yourself on the cross when you allow God to direct your life without your own rational interventions. You die like your Lord when you submit to His will without the endless ‘whys.’”
Second, we read in the Synaxarion of the Martyrs whose life we are studying, and also in the Synaxaria of other martyrs, that many pagans who were present at their martyrdom believed in Christ, confessed Him boldly, and sealed their confession with the blood of their own martyrdom. This shows the great value of a radiant example. These pagans were people of good disposition; therefore their hearts received the grace of the Holy Spirit, who was at work in the Martyrs, strengthening them and giving them the power to love and to endure with courage, calmness, and serenity their sufferings, as though someone else — not they themselves — were suffering. After all, the strongest preaching is that which is supported by a sanctified life; therefore, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov teaches, “true mission is accomplished through the intensity of prayer and by example.”
Love for God means to place Him as the pilot of the “ship” of our life. It means obedience to His will, without our own “logical interventions” and the endless “whys.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
