Saturday, November 05, 2016

Perpetua

In the recitative of the Litany of the Saints, sung on Holy Saturday, and All Saint's Day were the pair of St. Perpetua and Felicity. I was told they were probably also apocryphal. With those names, I figured that sounded right. But apparently they are better than usually attested, however mangled their story has become.

But wow, what a different world view. Pregnant women, noble and slave, martyred, bucking a madly patriarchal model for... well, what did they believe? Surely not the even more woman-hating religion that the christian church would become. Maybe it seemed like it would offer more freedom when new formed. And did later editing change the tone of their stance, or did they even think in those terms? Or were these the actual words written by a Roman woman who converted fervently to a new cult that offered eternal life?

Something is clearly missing, or altered beyond modern comprehension. But their names scan so beautifully, perpetually and joyfully.

Saint Perpetua and Felicity, (pray for us.)


The church I grew up attending was All Saints. It's changed a bit, but not that much.


5 comments:

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

On Friday afternoons in class 3 at primary school , we all sat knitting ( boys , too ) while the teacher read to us from The Lives Of Saints . Most of us finally got the hang of knitting but I seem to have missed out on Perpetua and Felicity .
Just don't Google Santa Perpetua ...

Zhoen said...

S&S,
Which of course I do immediately but all I see are tattoo artists.

I really only know them from the litany, my first and only contact with them until I looked them up today.

Rouchswalwe said...

One of my great-grandmothers was a Perpetua. Always have loved that name.

the polish chick said...

(0)

Zhoen said...

Rou,
Oh! That is cool.