St Peter Nolasco: Life, Our Lady of Ransom, Prayer, Feast

St Peter Nolasco (about 1189-1256) was a layman from the south of France who spent his fortune ransoming Christians enslaved by the Moors, and founded at Barcelona the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, the Mercedarians, whose members bound themselves by a fourth vow to give themselves up as hostages, if need be, for the freedom of captives. The Church has kept him as a model of charity at its most heroic, and in the calendar of 1962 his feast falls on 28 January. Here is his life as the Church read it in the Breviary, what historians have since disputed, how he died, and the prayer of his Mass.

Who was St Peter Nolasco?

Peter was born about 1189 of the noble family of Nolasco in Languedoc; the lessons of his feast in the Breviary place his birth at a village near Carcassonne. At fifteen he lost his father, who left him heir to a great estate, and he grew up under a mother who encouraged all his good aspirations. When he was urged to marry, Butler tells us, he spent a whole night in prayer and consecrated himself to God in celibacy, dedicating his patrimony to His service. The Breviary adds that he kept that vow of virginity all his life.

The same lessons say that, abhorring the Albigensian heresy then raging in the south of France, he sold his patrimony, went into Spain, and fulfilled a vow at the shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat before settling in Barcelona. Later writers made him a soldier in the crusade of Simon de Montfort and tutor to the young King James of Aragon; Butler says plainly that there is no adequate evidence for either.

A legend of his infancy, given in the Breviary, tells that a swarm of bees settled on the baby in his cradle and built a honeycomb in his right hand, a sign of the sweetness of his charity to come. Butler notes that the story appears in a document later shown to be a forgery (see below), and we give it as a legend.

The ransom of captives

The Moors were then masters of a great part of Spain, and many Christians were held as slaves there and in Africa, in danger, as Butler says, not only for their bodies but for their faith. Charity to the poor had always been Peter's mark. He spent his estate in redeeming as many captives as he could. "Behold eternal treasures which never fail," he used to say when he saw slaves. When his money was gone, the Breviary says, he would repeat that he longed to sell himself to free them, or to take their place in chains.

By his appeals he moved others to give large alms, and at last he planned a religious order that would provide, without interruption, men and means for this work of mercy, the redemption of captives, which our page on the works of mercy places among the corporal works.

The vision of Our Lady and the Order of Our Lady of Ransom

The Breviary tells the foundation as the tradition of the order told it. One night, as Peter prayed and turned over in his mind how to help the captives, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and told him that it would be most pleasing to her Son and to herself if an order of religious were founded in her honour, charged above all with freeing captives from the tyranny of the infidels. The same night she gave the same message to St Raymond of Penafort, Peter's confessor, and to King James I of Aragon.

Together they founded the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives. In the account Butler gives, the King and Raymond led Peter to the church in Barcelona, where Bishop Berengarius received his three religious vows, to which Peter added a fourth: to devote his whole substance, and his very liberty if necessary, to the ransom of slaves, and to remain as a pledge in the power of the pagans if that were needed to free Christians. The same vow was required of all his followers. Raymond gave him the habit, made him the first master general, and drew up the rule, which Pope Gregory IX confirmed in 1235. The Spanish word merced, ransom or mercy, gave the religious their common name: the Mercedarians.

What history can and cannot say

Butler, who tells this traditional story, is unusually frank about it. Hardly any detail, he says, has escaped criticism, and the facts of the foundation are "wrapped in hopeless uncertainty". The very date is disputed even among Mercedarian writers: 1218, 1223, 1228 or 1234. Dominican and Mercedarian historians long argued over whether St Raymond inspired the work or was merely Peter's confidant.

Above all, early in the seventeenth century, while Peter's canonization was being pressed in Rome, an iron casket full of hitherto unknown documents was "discovered most opportunely" behind a brick wall in the Mercedarian house at Barcelona. The most famous of them, the "deed with the seals", dated 1260, told of the triple apparition of Our Lady and of the bees in the cradle. A Mercedarian historian himself, Father Gazulla, showed that the notary named in it had died before February 1259; the deed is now admitted to be a forgery.

None of this touches what is certain: that Peter Nolasco gave his fortune and his life to the ransom of captives, that the order he founded did that work for centuries, and that the Church has honoured him for it. In Butler's day the Mercedarians, by then given to apostolic and charitable work in general, still took the vow to ransom captives at their profession.

The work of the ransomers

Peter ordained that two religious should always be sent together among the infidels to negotiate the ransom of captives; they were called ransomers. He was one of the first himself, in the kingdom of Valencia and then in Granada, and besides comforting and redeeming a great number, he brought many Muslims to the faith. He made other journeys along the coasts held by the Moors, and a voyage to Algiers, where he was imprisoned. He burned, Butler says, with the desire of martyrdom.

When King James conquered the kingdom of Valencia, he founded several houses of the order there. The Breviary records that Peter had foretold the King's victory at Valencia, and Butler that the King attributed his victories to the saint's prayers. He was favoured, the lessons add, with frequent visions of his Guardian Angel and of the Mother of God.

How did St Peter Nolasco die?

Some years before his death Peter resigned his offices of ransomer and master general. Worn out with age, he fell ill, received the last sacraments and exhorted his brethren to charity towards the captives. Then he began to recite Psalm cx, "I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart", and at the words "He hath sent redemption to his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever" (Psalm cx. 9), he gave up his soul to God. The Breviary says he died at midnight on the Vigil of Christmas (media nocte Vigiliae Nativitatis Domini), in 1256; Butler gives Christmas Day, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His last words were, fittingly, a verse on redemption.

Miracles were reported at his relics. He was canonized in 1628, and Pope Alexander VII extended his feast to the whole Church.

Zurbaran and St Peter Nolasco

The Mercedarians of Seville commissioned the painter Francisco de Zurbarán to paint scenes from the life of their founder, and two of them are among the best-known images of the saint: The Vision of St Peter Nolasco, a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, and St Peter Nolasco's Vision of the Crucified St Peter, an apparition of the Apostle Peter.

The prayer of St Peter Nolasco (Missal of 1962)

His Mass takes the Introit Justus ut palma florebit from the Common of a Confessor not a Bishop, with the Epistle "We are made a spectacle to the world" (1 Corinthians iv. 9-14) and the Gospel "Fear not, little flock" (St Luke xii. 32-34). The Collect is proper to him; it addresses Our Lord and ends accordingly.

Collect, 28 January

Deus, qui in tuae caritatis exemplum ad fidelium redemptionem sanctum Petrum Ecclesiam tuam nova prole foecundare divinitus docuisti: ipsius nobis intercessione concede; a peccati servitute solutis, in coelesti patria perpetua libertate gaudere: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

O God, who, as an example of Thy charity, didst by divine inspiration teach holy Peter to enrich Thy Church with a new offspring for the redemption of the faithful: grant us through his intercession that, set free from the bondage of sin, we may rejoice in everlasting liberty in our heavenly country: Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The prayer reads his work as an image of a greater ransom: the captives he freed from the Moors stand for all of us, whom Christ frees from the slavery of sin. It is the prayer to St Peter Nolasco for any day, and a fitting one for prisoners and for persecuted Christians.

When is the feast day of St Peter Nolasco?

In the calendar of 1962 the feast of St Peter Nolasco falls on 28 January, a feast of the third class in white vestments, with a commemoration of St Agnes "for the second time", perhaps a remnant of an ancient octave (the story is in our page on St Agnes). The order he founded is also honoured by the feast of Our Lady of Ransom on 24 September, kept in the calendar of 1962 as a commemoration. The calendar of 1969 removed St Peter Nolasco's feast from the general calendar of the Church. You will find both days in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and his place among the saints in our guide to the Catholic saints.

Is St Peter Nolasco a patron saint?

He is the founder and patron of the Mercedarians. No other patronage is attached to him in the liturgical books; but a saint who offered his own liberty for that of captives is a natural intercessor for prisoners, for hostages and for Christians persecuted for their faith.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St Peter Nolasco?

A nobleman of Languedoc, born about 1189, who settled in Barcelona, spent his fortune ransoming Christian captives from the Moors, and founded the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, the Mercedarians, approved by Pope Gregory IX in 1235. He died in 1256 and was canonized in 1628.

What is the connection between St Peter Nolasco and Our Lady of Ransom?

According to the tradition of his order, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and asked for an order in her honour devoted to the ransom of captives; the order he founded bears her title, Our Lady of Mercy or of Ransom.

What was the fourth vow of the Mercedarians?

Besides poverty, chastity and obedience, they vowed to give their goods and, if necessary, their own liberty, remaining as hostages in the hands of the Moors, to free Christian captives.

How did St Peter Nolasco die?

Peacefully, in old age, after receiving the last sacraments, while reciting the psalm "I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart", at the words "He hath sent redemption to his people". The Breviary places his death at midnight on the Vigil of Christmas, 1256; Butler gives Christmas Day.

Are there any quotes from St Peter Nolasco?

Butler records the saying he repeated when he saw slaves: "Behold eternal treasures which never fail."

Was St Raymond of Penafort a co-founder of the Mercedarians?

The lessons of the Breviary say so, and that he wrote the order's rule. Historians have disputed how large his part was; the Breviary and Butler both make him Peter's confessor, and Butler calls him a zealous promoter of the work.

The Iter Fidei app carries the calendar of 1962 with every feast and commemoration, the Roman Missal with the prayers of each day and the Breviary with the lessons of St Peter Nolasco, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 28 January (St Peter Nolasco), 23 January (St Raymund of Penafort) and 21 January (St Agnes). Roman Breviary (edition before 1960), 28 January, lessons of the second nocturn (in the Breviary of 1962 this third-class feast has a single, contracted lesson). Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 28 January, and Common of a Confessor not a Bishop. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, Psalm cx. 9; 1 Corinthians iv. 9-14; St Luke xii. 32-34.