2/16/2015 – Our Lady of Mount Carmel - A Reflection

        I was just talking with one of my parishioners the other about how she reads a reflection on the saint or the feast day every morning, about how learns so much about our Church and our faith from the lives of these saints and from our liturgical feasts.  Today, we commemorate the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Mount Carmel was a place of refuge.  In the Christian era, Hermits lived on Mount Carmel in northern Israel beginning in the 12th century, dedicating a chapel there to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  They soon celebrated a special mass and office of readings dedicated to Mary.  The feast day was officially recognized by the Church in 1726 under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  This group of hermits evolved into the religious order of the Carmelites, the religious group that has given our Church the great saints & mystics Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, and John of the Cross, all three doctors of the Church, as well as the Carmelite sister Teresa of the Andes and Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). 
        In the different ways Mary appears to the faithful, she always points us to her son in a very special way.  May the intercessions of Our Lady of Mount Carmel lead us to her son, Jesus Christ.  May we find meaning and significance in our burdens as we unite them to the sufferings of Jesus.