Wednesday, July 16, 2014 Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel...

        The History

              of the 

             Feast 

                 of

          Our Lady

                  of

    Mount Carmel

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 Scapular of 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.

Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel:                                        Letter and Novena

Posted: Wednesday, July 9, 2014 4:56 pm

As the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel approaches, (on 16 July) the Prior General of the Order has sent a  message to members of the Carmelite Family Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Carmelite Family The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is approaching, and  another year has gone by. I would like to offer you my best  wishes. The day means a lot to all of us, a joyous and deep-felt moment in which we celebrate our devotion to the Mother of the  Lord, under the very popular title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  One year more: I would like to commend to her intercession, our  dreams and projects, our missions and apostolates, our joys and  our concerns. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother and Sister,  enlighten, guide and accompany us, so that we may be always  faithful to our vocation, and know how to respond generously to  the insistent call from Pope Francis to the whole Church, for all to  be true evangelisers. As you may perhaps recall, last year I suggested a possible  interpretation of an icon that is typical of devotion to Our Lady of  Mount Carmel: the Blessed Virgin who descends into Purgatory  and saves by her scapular all those who are suffering there. I  would ask you therefore that, in imitation of Mary, we might each  descend into the purgatories of today and in solidarity and  compassion, help those who are suffering to emerge from those  purgatories of every kind, of which there are many in the world of  today. On this occasion I would ask that every Carmelite, (friar,  cloistered nun, sister of the apostolic life, tertiary, member of a  confraternity, lay Carmelite member of one of the many groups that make up the Carmelite family) be united in contemplating,  sharing, increasing the beauty which is all around us (even, if at  times, somewhat hidden). Right from the beginning Carmel has  been closely linked to beauty. Mount Carmel is synonymous with  beauty in the First Testament, and we ourselves refer to Mary as  the Mother and Ornament of Carmel (Mother and Beauty of  Carmel). Our Order has been characterised down through the  centuries by that tendency towards the poetic, the artistic ... the  beautiful. Therefore, my desire is that our lives should be a song of praise to God for the beauty that surrounds us, and also a generous  commitment to ensure that beauty will not be diminished or  tarnished by what is evil, by sin, by the suffering of so many  innocent people, who are the victims of selfishness and all its  ramifications, (injustice, violence, inequality .....). May our lives as Carmelites, each in accordance with our specific  situation, become a song of praise to the Creator, and may each of us, in imitation of Mary, humbly proclaim the wonders that the  Lord has worked and continues to work in our lives. (Lk 1:46-55)  It may be that one of the most tragic features of the modern  world is the inability to generate beauty or to discover beauty. At  times, beauty finds itself reduced to something that is purely  aesthetic, self-centred, with no notion of solidarity, and therefore  no beauty at all, not authentic, producing only a sense of too much and of nothing. The ancient scholastics used to say, the good and  the beautiful, “bonum” et “pulchrum” always coincide. That’s the  way it is. When we want to discover what is beautiful, Mary, the teacher  and master of spirituality, points our gaze in another direction:  towards what is small and humble, what is of no account .....  Mary leads us to discover the beauty in the complexities of life, in  all that is noble and heroic, which at times we fail to see in day to  day life. May the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, with its novenas and  devotions, its liturgies and celebrations, be itself a humble and  peaceful song to beauty. We must not settle for mere routine, half- hearted celebrations, the remains of a glorious but very distant  past. We must also avoid mere external beauty, nothing more that  pomp and rubrics. No, on that day we must lift up our hearts,  through the calm beauty of the liturgy, over the misery of  humanity, and look at the “star of the sea” so that she may guide  us to Christ, Our Lord. Happy Feastday! May Mary, our Mother and Sister be with you  always. With brotherly affection, Fernando Millán Romeral O.Carm. Prior General Visit: http://www.ocarm.org/en/content/liturgy/solemn-commemoration-blessed-virgin-mary-mount-carmel-solemnity

Definition of the Scapular: In its original form, the scapular is a part of the monastic habit (the outfit that monks wear). It is composed of two large pieces of cloth, connected in the middle by narrower strips of cloth. The narrower strips provide an opening through which the monk places his head; the strips then sit on his shoulders, and the large pieces of cloth hang down in front and in back.

Today, the term is used most often to refer to a sacramental (a religious object) that has essentially the same form as the monastic scapular but is composed of much smaller pieces of cloth (usually only an inch or two square) and thinner connecting strips. Technically, these are known as the "small scapulars" and are worn by lay faithful as well as those in religious orders. Each small scapular represents a particular devotion and often has a certain indulgence or even a revealed "privilege" (or special power) attached to it.

Question: What is an Indulgence?

Answer: An Indulgence is the remission in whole or in part of the temporal punishment due to sin.

This is Question 231 of the Baltimore Catechism, a work in the public domain.

The most famous of the small scapulars is the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (the "Brown Scapular"), revealed by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself to St. Simon Stock on July 16, 1251. Those who wear it faithfully as an expression of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is said, will be granted the grace of final perseverance.

Pronunciation: ˈskapyələr

Common Misspellings: scapula

Litany of Intercession to Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. 

Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven,have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world,

God the Holy Ghost,

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, pray for us sinners.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Queen of heaven,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, vanquisher of Satan,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, most dutiful Daughter,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, most pure Virgin,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, most devoted Spouse,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, most tender Mother,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, perfect model of virtue,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, sure anchor of hope,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, refuge in affliction,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, dispenser of God's gifts,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, tower of strength against our foes,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, our aid in danger,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, road leading to Jesus,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, our light in darkness,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, our consolation at the hour of death,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, advocate of the most abandoned sinners, pray 

for us sinners.

For those hardened in vice, with confidence we come to thee, O Lady of 

Mount Carmel.

For those who grieve thy Son,

For those who neglect to pray,

For those who are in their agony,

For those who delay their conversion,

For those suffering in Purgatory,

For those who know thee not, with confidence we come to thee, O Lady of 

Mount Carmel.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Hope of the Despairing, intercede for us with thy Divine Son.

Let us pray.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, glorious Queen of Angels, channel of God's 

tenderest mercy to man, refuge and advocate of sinners, with confidence I 

prostrate myself before thee, beseeching thee to obtain for me [insert your 

request here]. In return I solemnly promise to have recourse to thee           

in all my trials, sufferings, and temptations, and I shall do all in my power 

to induce others to love and reverence thee and to invoke thee in all their needs. I 

Thank thee for the numberless blessings which I have received from thy 

mercy and powerful intercession. Continue to be my shield in danger, my 

guide in life, and my consolation at the hour of death. Amen.

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.

From then on, the celebration of the feast began to spread, with various 

popes approving the celebration in southern Italy, then Spain and her 

colonies, then Austria, Portugal and her colonies, and finally in the Papal 

States, before Benedict XIII placed the feast on the universal calendar of 

the Latin Church in 1726. It has since been adopted by some Eastern Rite   

Catholics as well.

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.

The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

A Popular Marian Feast by Scott P. Richert 

http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/p/OL_Mount_Carmel.htm

Today's Pope Francis Message:

    Children Migration be merciful to them...

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/07/16/papal_appeal_for_protection_of_child_migrants_gathers_pace/1102916