Felix was one of those early saints that faced persecution for his faith during the 3rd century. Butler tells us that, when imprisoned, Felix was captured, scourged, shackled, and thrown into a prison cell, the floor of which was strewn with potsherds and broken glass such that there was nowhere he could either stand or lie without lacerating himself.

Fortunately for Felix, one night an angel came and flooded his cell with great light and released him from his shackles. Then the angel put Felix on his back and transported him to the desert to minister to Felix’s old mentor, Maximus. Once he had revived his confessor, Felix put Maximus on his back and carried him to a village where Maximus could be ministered to by an unnamed elderly woman in her home.

After this, Felix went into hiding, devoting himself to prayer for the church. When that wave of persecutions abated, Felix reappeared and engaged in public ministry. Alas, as Butler reports, a group of armed pagans came after Felix because of his “zeal,” but when they found him, they did not recognize him as the one they were after. Felix did not correct their mistake, and as soon as they left him, Felix crawled into a hole in the wall of the old building that he was living in. That hold then “was instantly closed up by spiders’ webs.” When the pagans discovered that they had been fooled, they returned to the house and could not find Felix–with respect to the spiders’ webs, they concluded that these webs were so thick that there was no way they could have been created in the short time between when they left Felix and returned to the house. And so the armed pagans departed without their prey. Felix remained in that hole for six months, with an elderly Christian woman bringing him sustenance.

In this case, Felix had the aid of an angel, two old women, and some fast-working spiders in order to avoid persecution. Yet he is still a saint, alongside those who publicly proclaimed their faith and refused to hide from those who would attack, imprison, and/or kill them for their Christianity–many of whom were without such supernal assistance. If nothing else, there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to how people are supposed to behave or which persons receive divine intervention and which do not. But… don’t tell the church hierarchy, ok?

Thoughts?