Feast day: August 31
St. Raymond Nonnatus
A Spanish Mercedarian friar who traveled to North Africa to ransom Christian captives from slavery and, when his money ran out, offered himself in exchange as a hostage.
Raymond bears the curious surname 'Nonnatus' — 'not born' — from the tradition that he was delivered by an emergency operation after his mother died in labour, a story that made him the patron of midwives, expectant mothers, and difficult childbirth. He was born about 1204 in Catalonia, in Spain.
As a young man he joined the Mercedarians, the order recently founded by St. Peter Nolasco for a heroic purpose: the ransoming of Christian captives held in slavery by the Muslim powers of North Africa and Spain. The Mercedarians took a special fourth vow — to offer themselves as hostages, if need be, in place of those they could not buy free.
Raymond gave himself wholly to this work, travelling to Algiers and spending all the funds he had to liberate slaves. When his money ran out and captives still remained, he did exactly what his vow demanded: he handed himself over as a hostage in exchange for prisoners, accepting bondage so that others might go free.
In captivity he continued to preach and to encourage the faith of the enslaved Christians, and even won converts, which so enraged his captors that, to silence him, they bored holes through his lips and fastened them with a padlock. Eventually ransomed and brought home, he was made a cardinal but died soon after, in 1240. He is honoured as a model of self-sacrificing charity.
His name means 'not born' — delivered after his mother died — which, with his ransoming of captives, made him patron of midwives and expectant mothers.
Image: Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/12671b.htm
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