Our Lady of Ransom

Our Lady of Ransom, also called Our Lady of Mercy, comes from an age when Christian captivity was not a metaphor. In the thirteenth century, Christians were taken in raids, wars, and piracy, and many were held for ransom in lands under Muslim rule. Families sold what they had to free sons, fathers, mothers, and daughters. Some captives were pressured to abandon the faith. The misery was bodily, spiritual, and public. Into that world came St. Peter Nolasco and the work that became the Order of Our Lady of Mercy, the Mercedarians.

The tradition of the order places Our Lady at the beginning of the work. The Mercedarian habit, the dedication to Mary, and the feast all teach the same thing: mercy had to become organized, costly, and brave. The order did not exist merely to feel compassion for captives. Its members gathered alms, negotiated ransoms, crossed dangerous boundaries, and bound themselves by a fourth vow to remain as hostages if necessary for the deliverance of Christians. That is why the title Ransom is so strong. It names mercy that pays a price.

The feast on September 24 commemorates the foundation and mission of this Marian work. It is easy now to spiritualize the devotion too quickly, but its literal history should be preserved. Real prisoners were freed. Real religious risked captivity. Real families received back those they thought lost. From there the spiritual meaning becomes even stronger. Sin enslaves. Fear enslaves. Despair enslaves. Our Lady of Ransom teaches the faithful to ask Mary for liberty under Christ, and also to imitate her mercy by helping those who cannot free themselves. This is not a decorative title. It is Our Lady standing beside the captive until the price of mercy is paid.

The title also corrects a shallow idea of freedom. Christian liberty is not simply getting out of pain or constraint. It is being restored to the service of God. The captives for whom the Mercedarians labored were not numbers in a cause; they were souls in danger and members of Christ's body. Our Lady of Ransom keeps the Church's mercy concrete. Pray for the trapped. Pay what must be paid. Go where charity is costly. Trust Mary to obtain release, but be ready to become part of her answer.

That makes the devotion severe in the best sense. It asks not only, free me, but make me an instrument of freedom. Under this title Mary forms Christians who notice chains, whether those chains are iron, addiction, fear, debt, or sin.

The devotion asks Our Lady for deliverance from captivity, slavery to sin, danger, and impossible burdens, remembering the Mercedarian work of ransoming Christian captives.