Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The Feast of Our Lady of Ransom
A double major feast day, commemorating the foundation of the Mercedarians.

On 10 August, 1223, the Mercedarian Order was legally constituted at Barcelona by King James of Aragon and was approved by Gregory IX on 17 January, 1235. The Mercedarians celebrated their institution on the Sunday nearest to 1 Aug. (on which date in the year 1233 the Blessed Virgin was believed to have shown St. Peter Nolasco the white habit of the order)... In England the devotion to Our Lady of Ransom was revived in modern times to obtain the rescue of England as Our Lady's Dowry.

Prayer for the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom

O God, who by means of the most glorious Mother of Thy Son
was pleased to give new children to Thy Church
for the deliverance of Christ's faithful
from the power of the heathen;
grant, we beseech Thee,
that we who love and honor her as the foundress of so great a work may,
by her merits and intercession,
be ourselves delivered from all sin
and from the bondage of the evil one.
Through the same Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

The black and white picture, above, can be right clicked to save and printed in a larger format for a coloring page. The stories of Mercedarians, St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymond of Pentafort dovetail with this feast. We'll be talking about the threat to the Christian world that is still alive today, as well as the different kinds of captivity -- physical and spiritual.