Saint Peter Nolasco, Confessor
In the early thirteenth century the
Moors still held much of Spain, and in sudden raids from the sea they
carried off thousands of Christians, holding them as slaves in
Granada and in their citadels along the African coast. A hero of
these unfortunates was Saint Peter Nolasco, born about the year 1189
near Carcassonne in France. When he went to Barcelona to escape the
heresy then rampant in southern France, he consecrated the fortune he
had inherited to the redemption of the captives taken on the seas by
the Saracens. He was obsessed with the thought of their suffering,
and desired to sell his own person to deliver his brethren and take
their chains upon himself. God made it known to him how agreeable
that desire was to Him.
Because of these large sums of money he
expended, Peter became penniless. He was without resources and
powerless, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said to him:
Find for Me other men like yourself, an army of brave, generous,
unselfish men, and send them into the lands where the children of the
Faith are suffering. Peter went at once to Saint Raymond of
Pennafort, his confessor, who had had a similar revelation and used
his influence with King James I of Aragon and with Berengarius,
Archbishop of Barcelona, to obtain approbation and support for the
new community. On August 10, 1218, Peter and two companions were
received as the first members of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom,
dedicated to the recovery of Christian captives. To the three
traditional vows of religion, its members joined a fourth, that of
delivering their own persons to the overlords, if necessary, to
ransom Christians.
The Order spread rapidly. Peter and his
comrades traveled throughout Christian Spain, recruiting new members
and collecting funds to purchase the captives. Then they began
negotiations with the slave-owners. They penetrated Andalusia,
crossed the sea to Tunis and Morocco, and brought home cargo after
cargo of Christians. Although Peter, as General of the Order, was
occupied with its organization and administration, he made two trips
to Africa where, besides liberating captives, he converted many
Moors. He died after a long illness on Christmas night of 1256; he
was canonized by Pope Urban VIII in 1628. His Order continues its
religious services, now devoted to preaching and hospital service.
Little Pictorial Lives of
the Saints, a compilation based on Butler's Lives of the
Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers:
New York, 1894); Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by
Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 2