Our Lady of Ransom
Beatae Mariae Virginis de Mercede
This feast honours the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of Our Lady of Ransom, the heavenly patroness of the Order founded for the redemption of Christian captives held in bondage for their faith.
On the twenty-fourth of September the Church honours the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Ransom — in Latin, Beata Maria Virgo de Mercede, Our Lady of Mercy. The feast is bound up with the founding of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, the Mercedarians, raised up in the thirteenth century for the ransoming of Christians who had been taken captive and were in danger of losing their faith in bondage.
The work of redemption
In the thirteenth century, when many Christians of Spain and the lands about the Mediterranean were carried off into captivity and held in cruel servitude, where their faith was sorely tried, God raised up Saint Peter Nolasco, who, moved by compassion and, as the tradition relates, encouraged by the Blessed Virgin herself, founded an Order devoted to their deliverance. Its members took, besides the usual vows, a special promise to give themselves up, if need be, as hostages in exchange for captives whose faith stood in peril. Under the patronage and the title of our Lady, this Order laboured for centuries to ransom the captive and to bring them home to freedom and to the practice of their faith.
In this feast the Church honours the Mother of God as the patroness and protectress of so merciful a work, and beholds in her the model and the helper of all Christian charity. As she is the refuge of sinners and the comfort of the afflicted, so she is invoked as Our Lady of Ransom, who pleads for the deliverance of her children from every bondage of body and of soul, and who leads captives out into the freedom of the children of God.
The feast
The devotion to Our Lady of Ransom spread from Spain throughout the Church, and the feast was in time extended to the universal Church, that all the faithful might honour the Mother of Mercy and give thanks for the deliverance of so many through her intercession. It is kept on the twenty-fourth of September.
The collect of the day commemorates the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking that we who keep her memory may be delivered from the bondage of our sins by the merits and prayers of her Son and of herself. The feast is kept on the twenty-fourth of September.
The Collect
O God, who through the most glorious Mother of thy Son wast pleased to enrich thy Church with a new family for the deliverance of Christ’s faithful from the power of the heathen: grant, we beseech thee, that we who venerate her as the foundress of so great a work may by her merits and intercession be ourselves delivered from all our sins and from the bondage of the enemy.
Deus, qui per gloriosíssimam Fílii tui Matrem, ad liberándos Christifidéles a potestáte paganórum, nova Ecclésiam tuam prole amplificáre dignátus es: præsta, quǽsumus; ut, quam pie venerámur tanti óperis institutrícem, eius méritis et intercessióne, a peccátis ómnibus et captivitáte dǽmonis liberémur.
Patronage
The feast honours the Blessed Virgin Mary as patroness of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom (the Mercedarians) and as the helper of captives; she is venerated under this title especially in Spain and the lands of its former dominions.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar this feast is no longer kept on the universal calendar, though it is retained by the Mercedarian Order and observed in some places.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Our Lady of Ransom?
It is kept on 24 September in the calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal, as a Fourth Class feast. In the modern universal calendar it is no longer observed, though it is retained by the Mercedarian Order and kept in some places.
What does ‘Our Lady of Ransom’ mean?
The title, from the Latin de Mercede (of Mercy or of Ransom), honours the Blessed Virgin Mary as patroness of the work of ransoming Christian captives. It is linked to the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, the Mercedarians, founded in the thirteenth century by Saint Peter Nolasco to deliver Christians held in captivity for their faith.
Who are the Mercedarians?
The Mercedarians are the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, founded in the thirteenth century by Saint Peter Nolasco. Besides the usual religious vows, their members promised to offer themselves as hostages, if necessary, to ransom Christian captives whose faith was in danger. Our Lady of Ransom is their heavenly patroness.
See where this feast falls in the Church’s year on the liturgical calendar, or find a Traditional Latin Mass near you.
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