St Perpetua and St Felicity are the saints we celebrate today. They lived in Carthage in North Africa. They were martyred for the faith in the year 203 AD in the persecutions of Christians by the emperor Severus. While a lot of the information about the martyrs from the early Church has been passed down through stories and legends, we actually have an account written by Perpetua about her circumstances. She was a young woman of noble birth and a mother of young children. Pepetua and Felicity were put to death because they would not renounce their faith.
The first reading today on the Saturday of the second week of Lent comes from the prophet Micah. It was written at the time that the Jews were return from exile in Babylon in the 6th century before Christ’s birth. The Jews had a lot of fear and trepidation in return to Jerusalem, knowing that they would have to rebuild their city and would have do a lot of work in reclaiming the traditions of their Jewish faith. Micah as a prophet in the same era as Isaiah and Hosea. Micah was pleading for God to take care of his people, remember the days of old when the Lord led them out of bondage in Egypt. Micah encouraged the people to have confidence in the Lord’s faithfulness and in his steadfast love. May we continue to have confidence in the Lord on our journey of faith as well.
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