The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity by Thomas J. Heffernan

In the same lineage as Perpetua, young adult Christians have chosen to swim upstream in a culture that bends anywhere but toward community, compassion, and justice. They want what any of us want-to be engaged on equal footing. I presently work with young adults, and any of them would and will tell you that what they can’t stand about church communities is being categorized, compartmentalized, marginalized, fetishized.

Her life, as Perpetua presents it, speaks of the importance adult freedom and choice. She, and perhaps her friend Felicitas as well, are consummate young adult Christians, unwilling to be defined by the categories of society and choosing, instead, a vision of a heavenly equality. So often, I think we bend the lost lives of martyrs to our own ends, to prove our own concerns and points, and I love reading Perpetua on her own terms because she is the one who bends Roman society to God’s ends. Christ makes her not only a Christian-Christ also makes her an adult, an authority, a writer, a leader. What I can say, reading her own words, is that Perpetua does choose. I’m not sure I could, as she does, walk away from my infant child and help the executioner find the right place on my neck. Honestly, I feel sympathy for her father, who tries to dissuade her but fails to listen to what she wants. I strongly suspect that none of us truly understands a call to martyrdom until it’s upon us, and so I cannot say how she came to her choice.

A young woman claims her place among those with authority, and she does so as herself-full of feeling, loving toward her family, sincere in her faith. Her short text ( The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas is worth a read-it likely takes less than 20 minutes, and you can find a decent free version online) reveals a deeply human story. She wrote her own diary, leaving us with some of the earliest words written by a Christian woman.

She told her father, “I am a Christian,” even when it would cost her life in a Roman amphitheater. Perpetua-woman, mother, daughter, sister, and Christian-claimed her adult authority with both hands. Well, likely not the literal stoplight, not her in 3 rd century Roman context, but maybe crossing under the local aqueduct had the same effect. When did you become an adult? Was there a moment, an inbreath as a child followed by a grownup outbreath? Did it happen slowly over months so that one day, sitting at a stoplight, you knew childhood had passed on for you? Did it happen in the midst of trauma? Or the confirming hands of a bishop? Or from the first reluctantly paid rent check? Or was it the birth of a child?įor Perpetua, adulthood seems to have come from all of these things.

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity by Thomas J. Heffernan