The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel…

A prayer to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

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from About.com

“According to the traditions of the Carmelite order, on July 16, 1251, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock, a Carmelite. During the vision, she revealed to him the Scapularof Our Lady of Mount Carmel, popularly known as the “Brown Scapular.” A century and a quarter later, the Carmelite order began to celebrate on this date the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The Carmelites had long claimed that their order extended back to ancient times-indeed, that it was founded on Mount Carmel in Palestine by the prophets Elijah and Elisha. While others disputed this idea, Pope Honorius III, in approving the order in 1226, seemed to accept its antiquity. The celebration of the feast became wrapped up with this controversy, and, in 1609, after Robert Cardinal Bellarmine examined the origins of the feast, it was declared the patronal feast of the Carmelite order.

The feast celebrates the devotion that the Blessed Virgin Mary has to those who are devoted to her, and who signal that devotion by wearing the Brown Scapular. According to tradition, those who wear the scapular faithfully and remain devoted to the Blessed Virgin until death will be granted the grace of final perseverance and be delivered from Purgatory early.”

I’m all about the cloth scapular rather than the medal or wood ones. It’s intent is to be a habit…who wears metal or wood clothing?  I realize papal permission was given to wear the medal instead, but that was for missionaries in the jungle where the climate disintigrated the cloth quickly.  Really, would it really be a big problem, for those committed to the devotion, to wear the cloth scapular for solidarity sake?   Anyway…

Here are a few of the Carmelites dearest to our hearts:

Also  THE SIXTEEN CARMELITE MARTYRS OF  COMPIEGNE, but that’s tomorrow….