Would you give your life for a slave? These religious people promise to do it

Every August 23, the “International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition” is celebrated to never forget the damage caused by slavery and captivity of human beings. But, did you know that there is an ancient Catholic religious order whose members make a special vow to God to give their lives in exchange for a Christian slave?

Religious in the Catholic Church are characterized by making three vows to God on the day of their profession: poverty, chastity and obedience. But the Mercedarios have a peculiarity, and that is that their members make a fourth vow with which they commit to giving their own lives for the liberation of a captive.

“To fulfill this mission, driven by charity, we consecrate ourselves to God with a particular vow, by virtue of which we promise to give our life as Christ gave it for us, if necessary, to save Christians who are in extreme danger. of losing their faith, in the new forms of captivity”, pray the Constitutions of the Order of Mercy.

To understand this decision it is necessary to remember the founder of the community, San Pedro Nolasco, to whom the Virgin Mary appeared in 1218 advising him to start a community dedicated to helping slaves who were subjugated in other lands.

At the time of the saint (1189-1258), born in Barcelona (Spain), it was common for Muslims to take Christians to Africa to enslave them.

Saint Peter, seeing this reality, used his fortune to save hundreds of them, but the resources and alms ran out and the Mother of God intervened to found a religious order.

According to the website corazones.orgabout the lives of saints, “upon entering the order the members agreed to stay in the place of any captive who was in danger of losing their faith, in case the money was not enough to pay for their redemption.”

In this way, Saint Peter Nolasco and his brothers undertook many redemptive expeditions and managed to rescue and help numerous Christians.

In this sense, the Mercedarians of the Province of Castilla They point out: “We are sent to liberate, to love, to serve, to denounce captivity and the injustice that generates it, and in this we are not afraid and we risk our lives, because the ideal we seek deserves all our efforts.”

For his part, the Pope Francis, meeting in May 2022 with the Mercedarianshe noted that today “there are more slaves” than at the time the order was founded and encouraged them to continue their liberating mission in the new forms of modern slavery.

“The new slavery, those that are hidden, those that are not known, those hidden, but there are so many. Even in cities like Rome, London, Paris, everything, there are slavery that continues. Look for them and ask the Lord: What do I do?”, Pope Francis pointed out.