Our Lady of Mount Carmel

The origins of the Carmelite Order are mysterious. If you ask Carmelites, they'll point you to the Bible — and not the New Testament, but the Old. According to ancient tradition, it is the place where the prophets Elijah (1 Kings 18:42) and Elisha (2 Kings 2:25; 4:25) lived as hermits. We know that there were Christian hermits living there in the time of the early Church. A Byzantine monastery stood on the mountain in the seventh century, but was destroyed by invading Persians.

Hermits returned to Mount Carmel during the time of the Crusades — the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. First came Greeks and then Latins. In the midst of their hermitages, the Latins built a chapel to the Virgin Mary, whom they honored as knights honor their queen. In the Latin period, the community asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to give them a rule to live by, and so the order had its formal beginnings.

The fortunes of the Crusades rose and fell, and when they fell some of the Carmelite monks returned to Europe, where they founded monasteries that observed the rule they had followed on their mountain. The order grew and spread in their territory, but the Carmelites often faced misunderstanding and opposition. Sometimes the diocesan clergy treated them as unwelcome competition. There were rumors that the Church might dissolve the order altogether.

In the midst of this turmoil, in 1251, the order's prior general, Simon Stock, was beset by worries. He prayed intensely to the Virgin Mary, and she appeared to him accompanied by angels. She gave him the garment that would become a permanent part of the order's habit, its distinctive garb.

It was the brown scapular, which she called a "sign of salvation" and "a safeguard in perils." And she delivered it with a promise: "whoever dies in this garment will be preserved from eternal fires."

The original scapular was quite large. It was the monks' work apron, so it covered them, front and back.

Gradually, however, the use of the scapular spread beyond the order, and as it did it became more symbolic than practical. The brown scapulars worn today tend to be quite small.

Key to the spirituality of the scapular is the promise of salvation, and so the devotion is often associated with the doctrine of purgatory. In churches dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, there is often artwork depicting Mary welcoming souls to heaven — or even fishing souls out of purgatory by their scapulars!

The Carmelite Order prospered, of course, and down the centuries has produced an array of influential saints, both men and women: Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Therese of Lisieux, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Titus Brandsma …

Saint Simon Stock found himself in times of trouble. He prayed. And Mother Mary came to him, speaking words of wisdom. It was almost like a song, only infinitely, eternally better.