S. Raymundi Nonnati Confessoris

On the Feast of St. Raymond Nonnatus, Confessor, falling this year on the Twelfth Sunday Post Pentecost, the faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate in Brighton gather to honour a saint famed for heroic charity, profound purity, and devotion to the liberation of captives, while meditating on the Lord’s call to active love through the sacred liturgy of the Sunday.

The Missa “Os justi”, proper to confessors not bishops, recalls the righteous man whose lips speak wisdom and whose tongue utters judgment according to truth. St. Raymond Nonnatus, born miraculously after his mother’s death in childbirth—hence nonnatus, “not born” in the ordinary way—became a priest of the Mercedarian Order, which was founded for the redemption of Christians enslaved by Muslims. St. Raymond not only raised funds for ransoms, but when the money ran out, he offered himself in exchange. While imprisoned, he preached Christ boldly to his captors and, for this, had his lips padlocked shut—bearing this torment in silence rather than deny the Gospel.

His feast, therefore, is one of wordless eloquence: a testimony to redemptive suffering, Marian devotion, and pastoral courage in the face of evil. He is venerated especially as a patron of the falsely accused, expectant mothers, and those who suffer for speaking the truth.

The Twelfth Sunday Post Pentecost brings the Missa “Deus in adjutorium meum intende” with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:23–37). This Gospel, so often sentimentalised, is in fact a radical command: that love of neighbour must be concrete, sacrificial, and extend beyond ethnic, social, or religious boundaries. The priest and Levite pass by, clinging to ritual purity or fear. Only the Samaritan—despised and outcast—stoops to bind wounds and pays the cost of mercy. The Epistle (2 Corinthians 3:4–9) teaches that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life: the new law, written on hearts, is the law of charity.

In the Brighton Oratory, the faithful receive these converging lessons with gravity. In a society where speech is increasingly constrained, where the innocent suffer and the truth is muzzled, the example of St. Raymond Nonnatus stands like a lantern in the dark. He reminds the Church that love sometimes demands suffering in silence, and sometimes speech that wounds before it heals.

Thus, nourished by the Holy Eucharist, the faithful are called to become Samaritans in action and Nonnatuses in fidelity: lovers of truth, defenders of the vulnerable, and servants of Christ’s captives—both physical and spiritual.

Sancte Raymonde Nonnate, ora pro nobis. Vade, et tu fac similiter.