Pope Francis recently declared Sister Maria Laura Mainetti, the superior of the Sisters of the Cross religious order, to have died as a martyr after she was slain by three teenage girls in a Satanic sacrifice.
February 23
Feast of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr (D. 155)
“Leave me as I am. The one who gives me strength to endure the fire will also give me strength to stay quite still on the pyre, even without the precaution of your nails.”
--St. Polycarp at his martyrdom
Throughout the history of the Church, mass martyrdoms and persecutions have always given way to remarkable rises in Christianity, a phenomenon that will occur once again in spite of the atrocities of ISIS.
Sts. Perpetua and Felicity died on March 7, 203The annals of the Church are full of examples of courageous Catholic women, but few can rival the tale of a young nursing mother and a pregnant woman who showed such fierce courage in the face of death that even the hardest Roman soldiers were brought to their knees.
The story of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, whose feast we celebrate today, was recorded by the hand of Perpetua herself as well as others who knew the women. This account, known as "The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity," was so popular in the early centuries that it was often read during liturgies.
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