OUR LADY OF RANSOM

A MESSAGE FOR THE 16th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

In the year of our Lord 1218 St. Peter Nolasco was inspired to establish a religious order for the redemption of captives seized by the Moors in Spain and on the high seas.  Within five years the Order of Mercedarians was legally constituted at Barcelona by King James of Aragon and was approved by Pope Gregory IX on 17 January 1235.  A feast day was instituted and observed on 24 September (which is today) first in the religious order, then in Spain and France, and finally in 1696 Pope Innocent XII extended it to the entire Church.  This feast day was celebrated both under the title Our Lady or Ransom, or Our Lady of Mercy.

A little known yet ancient devotion introduced by the Order of Our Lady of Mercy is the Crown of Twelve Stars of Our Lady of Mercy.   It is based on the Book of the Apocalypse (12:1): "And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."  It is prayed on a chaplet, consisting of a medal, five Paternoster beads and three sets of four beads each where the Ave Maria is prayed in honor of Our Lady's Crown of Excellence. The chaplet ends with a Gloria Patri.

The vision of St. John the Divine of this "great sign in heaven" has been in the news this week.  Apparently, certain imprudent Christian astronomers have been  busy predicting the end of the world for September 23, which was yesterday.  If you are reading this, it didn't happen.  But it is interesting nevertheless that there did appear in the heavens last night one of those signs in the sky predicted by our Lord, which were supposed to herald his Second Coming, a prediction which seems to have been amply fulfilled over the past few weeks between the hurricanes, earthquakes, and threats from North Korea:  "Nation shall rise against nation... and great earthquakes shall be in divers places; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.  And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring" (John 21: 10, 11, 25).

What drew the attention of those astronomers was the extraordinary alignment of sun, moon and stars which seemed to present us with a celestial image of St. John's vision of the woman clothed with the sun.  Space precludes us from including all the astronomical details of the sun passing through the constellation of Virgo at this time, with all the other remarkable "coincidences"(?) reflecting the description in Apocalypse, but suffice it to say they are worthy of consideration.  What happens next of course remains to be seen, but given the concurrence of today's feast of Our Lady of Mercy with the possible fulfillment of so many prophecies—not to mention that the latest hurricane to hit the Caribbean happens to be called Maria—it would seem to be at least prudent to pray the Crown of Twelve Stars devotion as described above, invoking our Blessed Mother's protection and blessing on our Church, our nation, and our world.