St. Peter Nolasco

St. Peter Nolasco was born about 1189, most likely at Mas-Saintes-Puelles in Languedoc. The thirteenth century Mediterranean was a frontier of faith and of war. Christian villages along the coasts of Spain, Provence, and the islands were raided; men, women, and children were carried to the Maghreb and sold. Many of those captives were poor. Without a ransom they remained slaves, and some were pressured to abandon the Faith in order to live.

Peter came to Barcelona as a young man. He had means enough to give alms, and he used them for captives. The sight of Christians in chains did not remain a private sorrow. It became a vocation. Tradition holds that the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, asking for a religious family dedicated to the work of ransom under her title of Mercy. Whether one follows the later visionary accounts or the simpler historical core, the fruit is the same: Peter would not treat captivity as someone else's problem.

About 1218, with the support of King James I of Aragon and the counsel of St. Raymond of Penyafort, he founded the Order of Our Lady of Mercy — the Mercedarians, also called the Order of Our Lady of Ransom. The brothers took the ordinary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and a fourth: to remain themselves as hostages if that was the only way to free a Christian in danger of losing the Faith. It was not a romantic clause. Men of the order boarded ships, carried coin, and sometimes stayed behind in the slave markets so that another soul could sail home.

Peter spent decades collecting alms in Catalonia and Aragon, organizing expeditions, and forming brethren for a life that mixed monastery and mission. The white habit and scapular of the order were meant to show Mercy before they showed rank. He lived to see the work take root in Barcelona and beyond. On May 6, 1256, he died in Barcelona. The Church later canonized him; Pope Urban VIII confirmed the cult in 1628.

His feast on this site is January 28, the day long kept in the Roman Calendar alongside other January memorials. The Mercedarians also honor May 6, the day of his death. Both dates point to one life: a lay founder who spent gold, and if needed his own freedom, so that Christ's poor would not die without the sacraments in a foreign land.

Liturgical Celebration

The Church long kept St. Peter Nolasco on January 28. That is the date used on this site and in many popular Catholic calendars. He died on May 6, 1256, and the Mercedarian family still marks that day as his dies natalis. After the 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar his memorial is not universal; it remains proper to the Order of Mercy and to local calendars that have kept him. Canonization under Urban VIII (1628) confirmed a cult already alive in Catalonia and in the houses of the order.

Traditions and Customs

On this feast, Mercedarian communities pray for captives, for those in prison, and for Christians who cannot practice the Faith in freedom. The white scapular of Our Lady of Mercy is a fitting sign of the day. Almsgiving directed to the imprisoned or to agencies that fight trafficking is closer to Peter's spirit than a feast that ends in words.

Prayer and Devotion

Use the day to pray for anyone held against their will, for chaplains in prisons, and for the grace to spend something costly for another's freedom. Pair the memorial with prayer for the poor and with the life of St. Raymond of Penyafort, who helped give the young order its rule and its standing in the Church.