15 April 2020
Fourth Day of Easter
Year A
Yesterday we remembered Mercedarian Martyrs of Africa. The Mercediarians were, and are, an interesting lot. It started in sunny Spain. We all want to go to Spain, don’t we? Everybody I know wants to go to Spain because it’s sunny and they have those beaches and the food. Spain is great. But in medieval times Spain was a mess! The Christians and Muslims were duking it out for control of Europe, and there are no winners when Christians and Muslims fight. Anyway, what was happening is that the Muslims would capture Christinas and ship them off to Northern Africa to be slaves. One day a merchant named Peter Nolasco noticed this and it broke his heart. If the Christian slaves converted to Islam they had a pretty good chance of getting off the chain gang and maybe even into polite society and Peter was concerned that they were losing their faith to the allure of freedom. Peter was not a rich man, but he got his money together and started buying the slaves back. Others joined him and with support from the king and the bishop he founded the Mercedarian Order.
The fourth vow of the order, besides poverty, chastity, and obedience, is to give up your own life to save someone in danger of losing their faith. Peter sent the friars out in small groups to buy back slaves. They were generally mistreated, beaten, stoned, and often killed. But, it is estimated that by 1300 they had freed over 11,000 Christians.
On April 15 we remember a mission to Africa in which many friars were killed for their efforts.
Today the Mercedarian order seeks to ransom those who are in all kinds of slavery: Addiction, poverty, sin, and ignorance. They have communities all over the world.
So, I was wondering what I could do to help people out of their slavery. And from the confines of my little room I think the best I can do today is to be truly free myself. Even though confined, my mind and my heart soar with the thought that I too have been bought and repatriated into the kingdom of light.
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