Carmelite devotee Mila poses with the “little Carmelites” who wear Mary’s garb at the fiesta celebration in Carmelites Monastery, Davao City last July 16. (Mila Gill FB)
Mary, Brown Scapular and the Carmelites
Carmelite devotee Mila poses with the “little Carmelites” who wear Mary’s garb at the fiesta celebration in Carmelites Monastery, Davao City last July 16. (Mila Gill FB)
Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the title given by the first Carmelites who lived as hermits on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th century. They built a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary amidst their hermitages. From then on they referred to themselves as the “Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary” to signify their full and complete allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ with the Blessed Virgin Mary as their model.
The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is also known as the Feast of the Brown Scapular which became popular in Europe in the 15th century. According to the Carmelite tradition, the story of the Brown Scapular began when the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock in England in the year 1287. This was when the Carmelite Order was undergoing one of its worst struggles for survival. This condition was brought about when the Saracens took the Holy Land from the Christian Crusaders and persecuted the Christians there. Many members of the Carmelite Order fled to Europe and tried to establish the order in their respective countries in the midst of great uncertainties. It was during this period that St. Simon Stock who was serving then as the head of the Carmelite Order in Europe had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in which she gave him the Brown Scapular. After this, the Carmelite Order began to grow and expand in Europe and from that time on, the Brown Scapular became part of the Carmelite habit.
Later, as the Brown Scapular became more and more associated with Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a Carmelite Friar by the name of Fr. John Cheron published a document in 1642, indicated the date of the vision of St. Simon Stock as July 16, 1251. And this is how July 16 came to be the date for the celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or the Feast of the Brown Scapular.
Beyond these narratives about Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Carmelite Order lies a myriad of unwritten stories about a very special bond between the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Carmelites that traces its roots at the very slopes of Mt. Carmel where the first Carmelite hermits lived. It is about the faithful and unwavering devotion of the Carmelites to the Blessed Virgin Mary which is only surpassed by the devotion of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her Carmelite brothers and sisters. This special bond and devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel is best expressed in the following reflection of Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, OCD:
According to Fr. Gabriel, the Carmelites’ devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is, “a special call to the interior life, which is pre-eminently a Marian life. Our lady wants us to resemble her not only in our outward vesture but, far more, in heart and spirit. If we gaze into Mary’s soul, we shall see that grace in her has flowered into a spiritual life of incalculable wealth: a life of recollection, prayer, uninterrupted oblation to God, continual contact, and intimate union with Him. Those who want to live their devotion to Our lady of Mount Carmel to the full must follow Mary into the depths of her interior life. Carmel is the symbol of contemplative life, the life wholly dedicated to the quest for God, wholly orientated towards intimacy with God; and the one who has best realized this highest of ideals is Our Lady herself, Queen and Splendor of Carmel.”
And so, on July 16 the Carmelite nuns of Davao City, the first community of Carmelites who came to Mindanao more than seven decades ago, together with the Carmelite Friars of Tugbok and the Lay Carmelites celebrated the Feast of the Devotion that the Blessed Virgin Mary has to all who are devoted to her and express and show their devotion by wearing the Brown Scapular.
The Feast also celebrated the deep gratitude that the Carmelite Family of Davao has to all their supporters and benefactors and all the pilgrims who continue to come to the Carmelites for prayers and consolation and show their devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Patroness of the Carmelites. (Cesar R. Ledesma, OCDS | Contributor)
Annabelle Roda-Dafielmoto
Posted at 13:03h, 21 JuneI got one for my father and let him wore it prior to his death. He died very peacefully. His interment happened on the 28th of November 2020. With the brown scapular with him, I felt the eternal peace for him. At 3 o’clock in the morning of November 29, 2020, I was awakened by a dream of me who saw my father and met him in a white and peaceful place. When I called him, he just passed by. Then I looked at where he came from. It was a white room with an indescribable peace inside. I realized that my father was in paradise. The brown scapular and its spirituality and miracles are true.