Feast day: December 17

St. John of Matha

Priest, Founder · 1160–1213

Patron of Captives

A French priest who, moved by the plight of Christians enslaved by pirates and in war, founded the Trinitarian order dedicated to ransoming captives and freeing slaves.

John of Matha was a French priest of the late twelfth century, born in Provence about 1160 and educated at the University of Paris, where he became a doctor of theology and was ordained. According to tradition, at his first Mass he was given a vision that set the course of his life: he saw Christ between two captives, one a Christian and one a Moor, and understood that he was called to the ransoming of slaves.

He withdrew to consult a holy hermit, St. Felix of Valois, and together, about 1198, they founded a new religious order with an extraordinary and specific purpose: the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives — the Trinitarians. Its mission was to rescue Christians enslaved by the Muslim powers of the Mediterranean, a vast and tragic reality of the age of the Crusades.

The new order won the approval of Pope Innocent III, and its rule was striking: the brothers were to devote a full third of all their income to buying back captives. They travelled into hostile lands to negotiate ransoms, and when money failed, were even permitted to offer themselves in exchange for prisoners.

Over the following centuries the Trinitarians freed, by their own count, tens of thousands of enslaved Christians. John of Matha himself laboured for the order until his death in Rome in 1213. He is honoured as the founder of a great work of mercy and a patron of captives.

His order existed for one purpose — to buy back prisoners and slaves — and over the centuries the Trinitarians freed tens of thousands from captivity.

Image: University of Mary (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/15045d.htm