This feast commemorates the founding of a wonderful Order dedicated to the Immaculate Mother of God in the year 1218, and fully established in the year 1223. Its name is the Order of Our Lady of Ransom for the Redemption of Captives, and its members are known as the Mercedarians. Their founders were a saint named Peter Nolasco, a saint named Raymond of Pennafort (a General of the Dominican Order), and a king named James of Aragon. The Order’s purpose was to rescue Catholics from captivity, from the Moors, by the help and protection and intercession of the powerful Mother of God. Prayers are especially said on this day in the Catholic Church to rescue England from the hands of the heretics who are still keeping the lovely people of that country from the true Faith and from the love of the Mother of God. England was once known as “Our Lady’s Dowry.”
The Madonna della Misericordia protecting members of the Vespucci family, following Vasari a portrait of Amerigo Vespucci is left from the Madonna and Simonetta Vespucci (blond with uncovered hair). Public Domain image via Wikimedia Commons.
