Feast day: July 16
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Patronal feast of the Carmelites, the order of hermits-turned-mystics that gave the Church Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Thérèse of Lisieux.
The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel honours the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title most cherished by the Carmelite Order, and through it by countless ordinary Christians. Its roots reach back to Mount Carmel itself, the mountain in the Holy Land where, in the twelfth century, a group of hermits gathered to live a life of prayer in the spirit of the prophet Elijah, who had defended the worship of the true God on that same height.
These hermits built a chapel in honour of Mary and took her as their patroness, calling themselves the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Driven from the Holy Land by the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, they carried their devotion to Europe, where the Carmelites became one of the great orders of friars.
The feast is bound up especially with the brown scapular — two small pieces of cloth worn over the shoulders as a sign of consecration to Mary. According to Carmelite tradition, the Virgin appeared to St. Simon Stock, an early leader of the order in England, presenting the scapular as a pledge of her protection. The devotion spread far beyond the cloister to the laity, who wear a small version of it to this day.
Through this feast and this sign, Mary is honoured as a mother who clothes and shelters her children, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel remains one of the most beloved of all Marian devotions.
The brown scapular associated with this feast is one of the most worn devotional objects in history — two small squares of wool cloth.
Image: Pietro Novelli (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/13800a.htm
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