On March 7, the Church celebrates two great saints who have been honored by Catholics for more than 1800 years: Saints Perpetua and Felicity. Unlike so many other famous saints, Perpetua and Felicity were not priests, popes, or nuns. Instead, they were ordinary Catholic laywomen. But like every other saint, they lived their faith in Jesus Christ in an extraordinary way.
How many laywomen have been recognized as saints or blesseds by the Church? Unfortunately, that’s a complicated question, but clearly not because the Church has been slow to recognize laywomen as saints.
As I have already shown, it is impossible for us to know exactly how many men, women, and children have died as martyrs for their faith in Christ. Although the Church’s official liturgical calendar of saints includes names and numbers for many large groups of saints, there are sixty groups of martyrs also recognized, but whose names we do not know. Many of those martyrs may have been laywomen.
One example of a large group of martyrs makes the point well. The Church remembers 4,966 martyrs who died in North Africa for their faith in the year 483. Surely there were more than a few wives and mothers among them.
In the Church’s calendar, there are many women who entered religious life and are now recognized as saints or blesseds. That total number includes eighty-one abbesses, 241 nuns, 446 religious sisters, and 146 virgins.1 All of those women lived in their families for some period of time before entering their religious communities. While Saint Agnes of Montepulciano (1268-1317) talked her parents into letting her go a Franciscan convent when she was only nine years old, Saint Theresa of Portugal (1178-1250) didn’t become a Cistercian nun until after she had become a grandmother and a widow.
The Church recognizes 238 holy men who have become hermits, but only ten female hermits (sometimes called hermitesses). This is not too surprising, considering the feminine love for community and communication.
Almost all of the female children and teenagers who are recognized as saints and blesseds died as martyrs. Not all died as martyrs of purity, but many did.
Many people are surprised to learn that one of the greatest female saints in the history of the Church was a laywoman: Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) was a Dominican tertiary. Although she and the other tertiaries in her Italian town wore a distinctive habit, they were technically laywomen who were also members of the Dominican third order. There are sixty-three holy women in the Church’s calendar who were members of a third order.
There are also eight women who lived as oblates and are now considered saints. These women never took religious vows, but lived near a religious community. For example, Blessed Itala Mela (1904-1957) lived as a Benedictine oblate in La Spezia, Italy, and was known for her mystical writings.
But the vocations we most associate with laywomen are the vocations of wife and mother. The Church recognizes 155 wives, eighty-two mothers, and eighty-two widows as saints or blesseds.2
A total of 468 female saints and blesseds lived as laywomen for all or most of their lives. This number includes great queens such as Saint Clotilda of France (475-545), who married a pagan king and converted him to the faith. It also includes Saint Zita of Lucca (1218-1278), a holy woman who served as a humble housekeeper all her life. The total includes Saint Monica (d. 387), who prayed her wayward son, the future Saint Augustine of Hippo, into the Church. It also includes Saint Gianna Molla (1922-1962), who chose to refuse medical treatment to protect her unborn child, although at the cost of her life.
And that grand total includes Saints Perpetua and Felicity. Perpetua was a twenty-two-year-old married woman and the mother of a child whom she was still nursing. She lived in Carthage (modern Tunisia), and Felicity, who was pregnant, was her maid.3 The two women somehow found out about Jesus Christ and decided to enter the Church, although it was illegal to do so. During a crackdown on Christians under orders from Roman emperor Septimus Severus, they and four male catechumens were found and arrested. All six were undergoing instruction in the faith and were probably baptized by a deacon who visited them in prison. Felicity gave birth while in prison, and one of the men died there.
Both Perpetua’s child and Felicity’s baby were taken away from them near the end. On March 7, 203, the five remaining Christians were sent into a public arena, where wild animals attacked them and where they were ultimately executed by gladiators.
Perpetua had written down a description of her arrest, trial, and imprisonment, and another Christian who did not die with them added a preface and an account of the martyrs’ deaths. This work is now called “The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity”. This account became so popular with early Catholics that it was sometimes read at Mass.
Why did it seem appropriate for the sacred liturgy? “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity” includes visions, prayers, and a storyline that is reminiscent of Good Friday, but it also includes personal details that resonate with ordinary women.
Perpetua’s greatest agony was not over being in prison: it was over her family. She was ready to die for the Savior she loved, but her father was a pagan who bitterly opposed her decision to become a Catholic. She mourned the pain that her imprisonment caused her mother and brother, and tried to encourage them. Her son was initially taken from her in prison, but when she was allowed to keep and nurse him for a time, she was at peace and no longer anxious about her fate.
Saints Perpetua, Felicity, and all the other holy laywomen of the Church are great inspirations for those of us with families and children. They remind us that we are all called to holiness in the messiness of daily life, whether that be in monotonous chores or momentous medical decisions, in the daily grind or great trials like Perpetua’s. And it is possible for us to be holy women, as they were holy women. That’s because God continues to grant the gift of extraordinary faith even to ordinary women, if we will only ask.
(Editor’s note: This essay was posted originally on March 6, 2023.)
Endnotes:
1 The number of virgins given here includes those who have been traditionally called virgins, as well as those who are known under the modern title of consecrated virgins.
2 Note that there is some overlap in these numbers. For example, all of the women who became widows were wives, but not all those who were wives also became widows.
3 It is not clear why Perpetua’s husband and the father of Felicity’s baby do not appear in the account of their martyrdoms.
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Cant they just be saints??…this doesnt seem to be enough anymore, why?…the reverse why is important….blessings…
Yes, while men have taken the active lead and notoriety, seemingly in the shadows God’s daughters have made tremendous contribution to the faith and fidelity to Christ. From experience here and in elsewhere, Africa, Europe it was and still remains the women who showed the greater affinity to worship and practice, more open in expressing spiritual awareness.
Alright. I’ll go ahead and make an outrageously patronizing observation. After creating Man, God realized he had to create woman so save the world.
Would there have been a need to save the world without an Eve?
God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone; he needed a companion and a helpmate of his kind. Thus God made woman for man, according to Holy Scripture.
~Genesis 2:4-3:24
It is conceivable that Adam by himself could have sinned in an even more egregious way than through the sin he shared with Eve.
Adam and Eve represent different aspects of one sin, of throwing away their trust in God’s goodness and their friendship with him, for the promised power of a forbidden knowledge “you will be like gods”.
First, after Eve faithfully related to the serpent God’ prohibition to eat the forbidden fruit, serpent implicitly accuses God in lies seeding the doubts in her soul:
“You will not certainly die, For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Eve inwardly agrees with that accusation and thus throws away her trust in the goodness/truthfulness of God, eats the fruit and then gives it to Adam “who was with her” so he knew what was going on. As Ahab, he passively accepts the forbidden fruit from his wife. He accepts that God is a liar.
After that a deep change occurred in them represented by a sudden sense of shame unknown to them before. That was not the shame of their actions though but the shame of who they were now. The shame signified their loss of a friendship with God. When Adam hears God calling him he tries to hide (a bit humorous picture, to my mind). His hiding also indicates the further change in his psyche – an alienation from God and a fear of Him.
God gives Adam a chance to return back to Him:
“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
But Adam, in a totally unmanly fashion, blames his wife and also – implicitly – God: “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Unlike his husband, Eve being by God speaks plainly “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
So, in Adam and Eve (who are one flesh and thus “a building block of humanity”) one can see the symptoms of a human psyche falling from its center in the Other, God, towards a center in itself (narcissism). To me it is a story of an anti-creation, of a human narcissism via which evil enters into a human soul and the corruption begins which is to be passed to the next generations. The story is quite clinical, I mean that one familiar with human psychology can see the symptoms of progressing narcissism there and cracking/twisting relationships. Characteristically, Adam becomes unmanly and blames anyone but himself including God; both Adam and Eve appear to be unable to feel remorse and ask God to save them from their stupidity. I speculate that if they did God would save them. The drama of humanity is a refusal to say “yes, we sinned, we are idiots, save us”.
Eve succumbed to the wiles of the demon serpent. Adam fell to a mere human, his helpmate, his ‘rib’. Who is the weaker of the pair?!
Where was Adam when Eve was at the demon tree? God assigned him care of the Garden. Eve lived in the Garden so surely she deserved care. Adam knew that a certain Tree was dangerous. Why wasn’t Adam at Eve’s side when she visited the area?
Anna justly focuses on the couple’s oneness.
I think, no. Eve was to be in direct relationship with God just as Adam, not mediated merely in Adam. She had first to turn to God as I indicate below in my other below MARCH 7, 2024 AT 1:33 PM. Woman too was to have original innocence and original dignity complementing of the man, flesh and bone of my flesh and bone. This is why I say Genesis is read as a composite, the relations God led with Adam would also be for Eve.
There is a greatness to this proper to the woman who would bear children. To mention one dimension of it: Fr. Pacwa has noted that a new soul is infused at conception when the mother is alone with God. It does not happen during the planting of the seed.
Edit: as I indicate below in my other comment MARCH 7, 2024 AT 1:33 PM
But then James, would life be bearable for Man without Woman? After a year of thought since I humorously wrote God created Woman to save the world, it’s elementary. Man, or Mankind requires a more passive, deescalation dimension, the woman, who is more rational by nature in providing a balance in confrontations leading to violence and war, than Man, whereas Man, less willing to rationalize, more intellectual and rigorous if you wish in sticking to perceived principles. Excellent for moral integrity, not so for avoiding physical conflict. These are generalities. Women of course may excel intellectually and are perhaps generally better disposed to attain to moral integrity [during the crisis of Mass attendance there are noticeably more women than men who attend].
A good perspective on the necessity of the feminine within culture is given by Dr Karl Stern in The Flight from Woman.
Seriously James, do you think the serpent wouldn’t have approached Adam if he was the only one in the Garden?
Do you mean like Nancy Pelosi, just thought I throw that in. But really in today’s world way to many women, like too many men, are pro abortion.
E veremente fantastico!
Can you do a quick scan with this one: How many Saints or Blesseds ( and names!) were ever incarcerated or in prison? (Obviously the 11 apostle, Kolbe and others come to mind immediately.) I am writing a song about saints.
John of the Cross, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Lucia, Francisco, Jacinta. Thomas Moore. St. Bernadette and her family couldn’t afford housing so they chose to live in a prison. Edmund Campion. How about those saints enslaved?
There surely are many more whose names do not readily come to mind.
Joan of Arc was the first who came to my mind.
Before modern times, non-martyred saints were were laywomen (or laymen for that matter) were often royalty, nobility, or wealthy. Their status helped draw attention to their holiness and thus led to canonization.
St. Felicity was (or had been) a slave but she wasn’t identified as St. Perpetua’s servant. The latter, as a free Roman matron, plays the “lady card” brilliantly to get better treatment for the group and even has to encourage her executioner to stab her. Do read their PASSION. It’s the most interesting of all the ancient accounts of martyrdom.
But could we please, please get the details of St. Gianna’s life straight? She suffered from a fibroid tumor which was removed. She actually died of peritonitis after prolonged natural labor. I misstated the facts in an article once and became obsessed about this.
Ignatius offers “Saint Gianna Molla” written in part by her husband. I highly recommend it for a story filled with beautiful pathos. Girls and mothers and men who love mothers will weep.
“You so desired another child. You prayed and asked that the Lord would hear you. The Lord heard you, but this divine grace required the sacrifice of your life.
Many times you asked whether you were a worry to me….
I heard not a word from you in all those long months [Gianna’s miofibroma was diagnosed in the 2nd month of herfull term pregnancy.] about your awareness as a physician of what was ahead of you. Certainly, this was to keep me from suffering.
I watched you silently tidying up every corner of our house, every drawer, every dress, every personal object day after day as if for a long trip. But I did not dare to ask myself why.
Only a few days before the birth, in a firm and at the same time peaceful tone, with a profound gaze I have never forgotten, you declared to me: ‘If you have to decide between me and the baby, there is to be no hesitation. Choose the baby. I demand it. Save it!’….
Holy Saturday morning we had the incredible joy; the divine gift of the child we awaited–Gianna Emanuela.
A few hours later, your sufferings began, extraordinary, beyond your strength, sufferings which made you continually call on your mother, who was already in heaven….
When you took our little infant in your arms, you looked at her so affectionately, with a look that betrayed your unspeakable suffering at not being able to look after her, to raise her, to see her again….” (pp. 121-22).
The beautiful story does not end there.
As with the life of Christ, the death of Gianna was only the beginning of spectacular bestowals of greater grace brought about by and through her suffering.
We read: “[Perpetua and Felicity] remind us that we are all called to holiness in the messiness of daily life, whether that be in monotonous chores or momentous medical decisions, in the daily grind or great trials like Perpetua’s.”
Jean-Pierre de Caussade offers the same reassurance, in these words:
“For some, God will only that they should attend to the duties of their everyday life and to what other matters he confronts them with. They need to nothing else to achieve perfection. For others, God may demand the accomplishment of things which go beyond their ordinary duties [….] Saints are made by God just as he wishes” (Abandonment to Divine Providence).
No, commenters, no. You can’t be taking the Adam and Eve story in bits. It’s an integrated composition describing the actions of God in bringing things as He wanted them. It wasn’t to stop at Adam where God then figured out Eve would make it better. God allowed the devil to tempt only after He finished what He set about doing. It was for Eve to seek out God and Adam to defeat the Serpent. What would have developed from there HAS BEEN LOST FOREVER. Instead Eve capitulated. As it went, arguably she felt she would have it over both God and Adam; and arguably Adam felt he could balance the equation by matching wits with the same gambit, “The woman You put with me gave me to eat.”
We must keep in mind it was foreseen by God. God’s foreseen remedy in the Incarnate Word would be presented in the Immaculate Conception.
It’s not that Mary was immaculately conceived and kept sinless “out of necessity”. It was that Eve was the “original complement” to Adam, viz., “It’s not good for Man to be alone” where God is already talking to Adam about what is coming to pass.
And it was that God made Mary as He did out of His gratuitous love and mercy where God is already talking to Mary before the angel heralded the moment for heaven and earth; that she would be the Mother of the Redeemer.