Irapuato
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02:46
February 7 Saints Perpetua and Felicity. CCTNtv on Mar 7, 2012More
February 7 Saints Perpetua and Felicity.
CCTNtv on Mar 7, 2012
Irapuato
✍️ Other Saints of the day:
Ardo of Aniane
Deifer of Bodfari
Drausinus of Soissons
Enodoch
Esterwine of Wearmouth
Eubulus of Caesarea
Felicity of Carthage
Gaudiosus of Brescia
German Gardiner
John Ireland
John Larke
Leonid Feodorov
Paul of Prusa
Paul the Simple
Perpetua of Carthage
Reinhard of Reinhausen
Teresa Margaret Redi
Theophylact

Martyrs of Carthage - 4 saints
We can think of Lent as a …More
✍️ Other Saints of the day:
Ardo of Aniane
Deifer of Bodfari
Drausinus of Soissons
Enodoch
Esterwine of Wearmouth
Eubulus of Caesarea
Felicity of Carthage
Gaudiosus of Brescia
German Gardiner
John Ireland
John Larke
Leonid Feodorov
Paul of Prusa
Paul the Simple
Perpetua of Carthage
Reinhard of Reinhausen
Teresa Margaret Redi
Theophylact

Martyrs of Carthage - 4 saints
We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue, a time to pull up weeds or to plant good seeds. Which is better is clear, for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative. A person is great not by the ferocity of his hatred of evil, but by the intensity of his love for God. Asceticism and mortification are not the ends of a Christian life; they are only the means. The end is charity. Penance merely makes an opening in our ego in which the Light of God can pour. As we deflate ourselves, God fills us. And it is God’s arrival that is the important event. - Venerable Fulton Sheen
saints.sqpn.com/7-march/
Irapuato
Friday after Ash Wednesday
Book of Isaiah 58:1-9a.

Thus says the Lord GOD: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins.
They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; They ask me to declare what is due them,…More
Friday after Ash Wednesday

Book of Isaiah 58:1-9a.

Thus says the Lord GOD: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins.
They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God.
"Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?" Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers.
Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!
Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!

Psalms 51(50):3-4.5-6ab.18-19.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
In the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
And of my sin cleanse me.

For I acknowledge my offense,
And my sin is before me always:
"Against you only have I sinned,
And done what is evil in your sight."

For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
Should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 9:14-15.
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, «Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?»
Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Commentary of the day : Blessed John-Paul II
"Then they will fast"
dailygospel.org/main.php
One more comment from Irapuato
Irapuato
March 7 Sts. Perpetua and Felicity (d. 203?)
“When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel—waterpot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.’”
So writes …More
March 7 Sts. Perpetua and Felicity (d. 203?)

“When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel—waterpot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.’”
So writes Perpetua, young, beautiful, well-educated, a noblewoman of Carthage in North Africa, mother of an infant son and chronicler of the persecution of the Christians by Emperor Septimius Severus.
Despite threats of persecution and death, Perpetua, Felicity (a slavewoman and expectant mother) and three companions, Revocatus, Secundulus and Saturninus, refused to renounce their Christian faith. For their unwillingness, all were sent to the public games in the amphitheater. There, Perpetua and Felicity were beheaded, and the others killed by beasts.
Perpetua’s mother was a Christian and her father a pagan. He continually pleaded with her to deny her faith. She refused and was imprisoned at 22.
In her diary, Perpetua describes her period of captivity: “What a day of horror! Terrible heat, owing to the crowds! Rough treatment by the soldiers! To crown all, I was tormented with anxiety for my baby.... Such anxieties I suffered for many days, but I obtained leave for my baby to remain in the prison with me, and being relieved of my trouble and anxiety for him, I at once recovered my health, and my prison became a palace to me and I would rather have been there than anywhere else.”
Felicity gave birth to a girl a few days before the games commenced.
Perpetua’s record of her trial and imprisonment ends the day before the games. “Of what was done in the games themselves, let him write who will.” The diary was finished by an eyewitness.

Comment:

Persecution for religious beliefs is not confined to Christians in ancient times. Consider Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who, with her family, was forced into hiding and later died in Bergen-Belsen, one of Hitler’s death camps during World War II. Anne, like Perpetua and Felicity, endured hardship and suffering and finally death because she committed herself to God. In her diary Anne writes, “It’s twice as hard for us young ones to hold our ground, and maintain our opinions, in a time when all ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when people are showing their worst side, and do not know whether to believe in truth and right and God."

Quote:

Perpetua, unwilling to renounce Christianity, comforted her father in his grief over her decision, “It shall happen as God shall choose, for assuredly we depend not on our own power but on the power of God.“
www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx