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Sermonette: Perpetua, Felicity, and their Companions, Martyrs
Wednesday, 9 March 2022 07:47 pmAs preached at the midweek Eucharist at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Glassboro, NJ on the evening of Wednesday, March 9, 2022.
Hebrews 10:32-39
Psalm 124
Mathew 25:9-14
Today we commemorate five martyrs from the beginning of the 3rd century. Perpetua was a 22-year-old noblewoman, newly married with an even newer infant child. Felicity was a pregnant slave. Revocatus was a male slave, and Secondulus and Saturninus were freee men. All five were catechumens, Christians receiving instruction in the faith in preparation for baptism.
While in prison, Perpetua kept a diary, a document which we still have today–or at least a document claiming to be her diary. In it, she tells how her father visited her in prison and begged her to recant her Christianity. She refused him, holding fast to her faith, and a few days later she was baptized in prison. In her diary, she describes how she suffered physically due to the heat, rough prison guards, and not being allowed to breastfeed her child. Felicity, the slave, gave birth to a daughter in prison. Secondulus died in prison, and the others were put to death in the arena.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how I had in common with St. Paul the fact that I am a convert. I share with Perpetua and her companions that I have been a catechumen. My own catechumenate was more honorary than anything else: I met with my sponsor and my priest and we watched and discussed together a short video about baptism. I think they figured that four years of Catholic high school followed by another four in college studying religion and participating in my university’s Newman Community was sufficient preparation/
The season of Lent is the traditional period of the catechumenate, when adult converts prepare, as I did at least in theory, to be baptised and received into the Church at the Easter Vigil. It’s appropriate then, that this year and most (but not all) years, that this feast falls within the Lenten season.
The catechumenate prepares for the catechumen for the sacrament of baptism, and the sacrament of baptism prepares us for a life of Christian living. In the case of the five saints we commemorate tonight, it was a very brief life, but their deaths by martyrdom represented the culmination and fulfillment of the promises they made in their baptism.
Might I suggest that even for we who have already received the sacrament of baptism, whether as infants or as catechumens, we might still use the season of Lent as preparation, to prepare to renew the vows of our baptismal covenant at the Easter Vigil.
Hebrews 10:32-39
Psalm 124
Mathew 25:9-14
Today we commemorate five martyrs from the beginning of the 3rd century. Perpetua was a 22-year-old noblewoman, newly married with an even newer infant child. Felicity was a pregnant slave. Revocatus was a male slave, and Secondulus and Saturninus were freee men. All five were catechumens, Christians receiving instruction in the faith in preparation for baptism.
While in prison, Perpetua kept a diary, a document which we still have today–or at least a document claiming to be her diary. In it, she tells how her father visited her in prison and begged her to recant her Christianity. She refused him, holding fast to her faith, and a few days later she was baptized in prison. In her diary, she describes how she suffered physically due to the heat, rough prison guards, and not being allowed to breastfeed her child. Felicity, the slave, gave birth to a daughter in prison. Secondulus died in prison, and the others were put to death in the arena.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how I had in common with St. Paul the fact that I am a convert. I share with Perpetua and her companions that I have been a catechumen. My own catechumenate was more honorary than anything else: I met with my sponsor and my priest and we watched and discussed together a short video about baptism. I think they figured that four years of Catholic high school followed by another four in college studying religion and participating in my university’s Newman Community was sufficient preparation/
The season of Lent is the traditional period of the catechumenate, when adult converts prepare, as I did at least in theory, to be baptised and received into the Church at the Easter Vigil. It’s appropriate then, that this year and most (but not all) years, that this feast falls within the Lenten season.
The catechumenate prepares for the catechumen for the sacrament of baptism, and the sacrament of baptism prepares us for a life of Christian living. In the case of the five saints we commemorate tonight, it was a very brief life, but their deaths by martyrdom represented the culmination and fulfillment of the promises they made in their baptism.
Might I suggest that even for we who have already received the sacrament of baptism, whether as infants or as catechumens, we might still use the season of Lent as preparation, to prepare to renew the vows of our baptismal covenant at the Easter Vigil.