July 16 Is Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Mary & The Brown Scapular, Protect UsThe Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel should remind us that Mary, Mother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loves us and will protect us from evil.
Many Catholics wear the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel as a sign of great love for Our Lady and for her eternal protection.
Mount Carmel is not mentioned in the New Testament, but it is referenced by name in the Old Testament, first in Joshua 12:22 and 19:26; and more notably in 1 Kings 18, where it is recorded that it was on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land that the Prophet Elijah proved the power of God.
Church historians believe religious hermits lived on Mount Carmel near the Fountain of Elijah in northern Israel even before the time of Christ on Mount Carmel. It is the mountain that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea.
The hermits remained on the mountain and were true believers in Christ.
Legend tells us that Mary is said to have appeared to St. Simon Stock on July 16, 1251, and gave him, a Brown Scapular saying, “This will be for you and for all Carmelites the privilege, that he who dies in this will not suffer eternal fire.”
By the late 12th century to the mid-13th century, they built a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In the 15th century the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was designed by the hermits to honor their patroness. It was worn as part of their habit.
In later years a devotional Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was created for lay Catholics and is still popular today.
According to the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, the Scapular is “an external sign of the filial relationship established between the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother and Queen of Mount Carmel, and the faithful who entrust themselves totally to her protection, who have recourse to her maternal intercession, who are mindful of the primacy of the spiritual life and the need for prayer.”
It wasn’t until the 18th century that the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel entered the Calendar of the universal Church.
Saint Pope John Paul II wore his Brown Scapular ever since he was a young boy in Poland.
In 1981, while in the hospital after the assassination attempt, he did not allow it to be removed from his neck.
He explained his devotion:
“Two truths are evoked by the sign of the Scapular: on the one hand, the constant protection of the Blessed Virgin, not only on life’s journey, but also at the moment of passing into the fullness of eternal glory; on the other, the awareness that devotion to her cannot be limited to prayers and tributes in her honor on certain occasions, but must become a ‘habit’, that is, a permanent orientation of one’s own Christian conduct, woven of prayer and interior life, through frequent reception of the sacraments and the concrete practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. In this way the Scapular becomes a sign of the ‘covenant’ and reciprocal communion between Mary and the faithful: indeed, it concretely translates the gift of his Mother, which Jesus gave on the Cross to John and, through him, to all of us, and the entrustment of the beloved Apostle and of us to her, who became our spiritual Mother.”Editor’s note: The Brown Scapulars featured in the images with this post belonged to the late Donald Louis Klug and Carol Ann Klug, who were members of Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church in Wheeling (Mount Olivet, Marshall County), and shared by their son-in-law Rob Wickham, DWC Director of Website Development.
