July 10th Feast of Saint Felicity & Her Seven Sons
Today is the feast day of Saint Felicity & Her Seven Sons. It’s also my birthday and I too have seven sons (so far!).
Perpetua and Felicity were martyred in Carthage by Emperor Septimus Severus in 202 or 203. They were in a large group of Christians who had been rounded up and imprisoned. Perpetua received a dream where she saw a ladder stretching from earth to Heaven covered with sharp implements of torture and a serpent at the bottom. She saw Satyrus, one of their number, run up to the top of the ladder without injury. He encouraged her to ascend, “but mind the serpent.” She used the serpent’s head as if it were the first rung and ascended to Glory. With this vision, she encouraged the others to follow faithfully in martyrdom. St. Satyrus was martyred first, then Perpetua. Then the rest all followed. This was done in the arena as entertainment for the pagans. St. Perpetua was a 22 year-old noblewoman, married, with a newborn son. St. Felicity was a slave and was pregnant. They waited for her to give birth before they martyred her, but they made her watch her seven sons be martyred by various means before her eyes. St. Felicity gave birth to a girl, who was spirited off to be raised by Christians. Then she was thrown to the lions and stabbed with spears. It is said that St. Felicity was martyred 8 times, once with the death of each of her sons, then her own.
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Jul 10, 2006 - 01:07:39Happy Birthday Michele! Hope you have a great day!
Michele, Happy Birthday!
Ohhhh!!!
Happy, happy birthday, Michele.
Bless you!
Btw, I love the name Felicity.
I always tell the girls that if we ever have another girl, I’d like to name her Felicity.
The Quigley family has a blog!! Wonderful!!
It is very unlikely that you know me, BUT:
I was at LCHS around the same time as Timothy.
I was at Fr. Techou’s ordination- about 3 rows behind Quigley Row.
I recently attended QVD w/ Christopher.
Hope to read more- glad I discovered the blog!
God Bless!
Happy Birthday Michele! Thank you for sharing the story of St. Felicity! My kiddoes loved it and the picture. They want to put it in their Liturgical year notebook….pretty cool! Thank you! Abundant Blessings to you and yours…and a blessed pregnancy too!!
Happy Birthday!
I’m confused though. My daughter’s name is Felicity and I thought her feast day was in March — does she have two? Or is it different in the UK (surely not!)?
[Elizabeth, The Latin Rite calendar lists July 10th as the feast of St. Felicity and her seven sons and March 7th as the feast of Saints Perpetua and Felicity. It is believed by many that it is the same Felicity for both but of course we don't know for sure. So it may well be that she does indeed has 2 feast days. Of course this is the calendar as we have it now. The old calendar listed November 23rd as the feast St. Felicity. God bless! - Michele]
Michele,
Your reply to Elizabeth is good to know.
Some readers are wanting Hillside Education to supply a booklist for the Catholic Mosaic book study centered around the old calendar schedule. I think Margot is working on this now.
I love this story, Felicity is such an heroic saint. Happy happy belated birthday wishes to you as well!! Thanks for sharing this.
Hi there, This is lovely, however in fact there were two saints called Felicity.
The first was martyred with Perpetua and others in about 203 CE - she was a slave of Perpetua and she was the one who gave birth to a girl just before they led the group to the arena for “sport”. Perpetua and Felicity of Carthage have their day on March 7th.
The second is Felicity (Felicitas actually) of Rome. She was the one with seven sons, all of whom were martyred while she was forced to watch, in 165 CE. Her day is November 23rd as far as I knew, but perhaps it has been moved to July 10th
In my 1962 missal The Seven Holy Brothers, Martyrs are listed for July 10th. These were the sons of St. Felicity all martyred before her eyes, on the same day A.D. 150.
The same St. Felicity is listed on Nov. 23rd but apparently she was transferred to July 10th on the new calendar - perhaps because Nov. 23rd is also Pope St. Clement?