Saint Raymond was a Mercederian friar. They and the Trinitarians were “ransoming orders,” i.e., mendicant orders specifically founded to free Christians from slavery to the Muslims. Their members would both raise funds to ransom Christian captives and, in some cases, they would heroically exchange their lives to free the captives. Knowing this helps us to see the clever wordplay in this oration, where the ransoming charism of the Mercederians, so important to the saint’s life, is made an analogue to the concepts of bondage to sin and the freedom to pursue the good.