A Roman soldier noticed a man walking the same route at night, past the quiet streets of Rome and down toward the burial grounds. They followed him. The arrest was quick. Questions came fast. Names followed. So did arrests.
Have you ever heard of an underground Mass?
In the 3rd century, Christians worshiped in secret. Public gatherings were dangerous. Christianity was still illegal. There were no churches yet. Believers met where soldiers rarely cared to look, inside the Roman catacombs, among the dead.
This was the world of Pope Saint Felix I.
Felix became Bishop of Rome around AD 269, in Rome itself. Persecution came in waves. Sometimes quiet. Sometimes sudden. Underground Masses were already happening. It was how the Church stayed alive.
Felix did not start these gatherings. He did not choose where they began. But he did not stop them. Tradition holds that during his time, the Eucharist was celebrated at the tombs of martyrs, and this practice continued within the Church, hidden from the city above.
The underground Mass was simple. Oil lamps instead of candles. Soft voices instead of hymns. No fixed schedule. No certainty that everyone would go home alive. Faith passed quietly, from one person to another.
Pope Saint Felix I lived under the same risk as his people. According to early tradition, he died a martyr. No detailed record tells how. No scene survives. Just the end.
Quietly. Without witnesses. Like the Masses he helped protect.
Sometimes faith survives by going underground.
⌨ ᴛʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ ᴏᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ʙˡᵘᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵉᵐ ᵐᵘˢⁱᶜ ᵇˡᵒᵍ
