The Virgin Who Ransomed Captives

Our Lady of Mercy (Nuestra Senora de la Merced), also called Our Lady of Ransom, is a title of the Virgin Mary bound to the work of freeing Christian captives held in the Muslim lands of the western Mediterranean. According to the tradition of the order she inspired, the Virgin appeared in 1218 to Peter Nolasco at Barcelona, and, with the counsel of the Dominican canon Raymond of Penafort and the support of King James I of Aragon, he founded the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, the Mercedarians. Its members took the ordinary religious vows and a distinctive fourth vow: to give themselves up as hostages, if need be, in exchange for captives whose faith was in danger. Over the following centuries the Mercedarians travelled to North Africa and Iberia to negotiate and pay for the release of prisoners, and Mary under this title was honoured as their heavenly patroness and the redeemer of the enslaved.