Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom. In England the devotion to Our Lady of Ransom was revived in modern times to obtain the re-conversion of England as ‘Our Lady's Dowry’.
The origins of the Feast can be found in the little known Mercedarian Order. The Blessed Virgin appeared in the thirteenth century in separate visions to St. Peter Nolasco, St. Raymond of Penafort and James, king of Aragon, requesting them to found a religious order dedicated to freeing Christian slaves who had been taken by the Muslims during numerous raids on Europe. The Order of Our Lady of Ransom was established and is now known as the Mercedarian Order. Most of the members were knights, and while the clerics recited the divine office in the commanderies, they guarded the coasts and delivered prisoners. This pious work spread everywhere and produced heroes of charity who collected alms for the ransom of Christians, and often gave themselves up in exchange for Christian prisoners. This feast, kept only by the Order, was extended to the whole Church by Innocent XII in the 17th century.
More information on the Mercedarian Order can be found here.
Collect for the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom
O God, who by means of the most glorious Mother of Thy Son wast pleased to give new children to Thy Church for the deliverance of Christ’s faithful from the power of the heathen; grant, we beseech Thee, that we who love and honour her as the foundress of so great a work may, by her merits and intercession, be ourselves delivered from all sin and from the bondage of the evil one. Through the same Lord.
We ask Our Lady of Ransom to intercede for Christians who are experiencing hardship in Muslim lands today.
(Source: The St Andrew Daily Missal.)
We ask Our Lady of Ransom to intercede for Christians who are experiencing hardship in Muslim lands today.
(Source: The St Andrew Daily Missal.)
