Saint Perpetua, martyr of Carthage

Vibia Perpetua was a young noblewoman of Carthage, a catechumen and the mother of a nursing child, arrested in 203 under the emperor Septimius Severus with her slave Felicity and other catechumens. She was baptized in prison and held firm despite her father's pleas to deny her faith. Her own prison diary, with the visions she received, survives in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, one of the earliest Christian writings by a woman. She was exposed to wild beasts in the arena and then put to death by the sword on March 7, 203. The Church celebrates her together with Saint Felicity on March 7.