16 July 2021 – Our Lady of Mount Carmel - Matthew 12:1-8

    The Pharisees were always trying to trap Jesus.  They always tried to find a law that they could accuse him of breaking.  They criticized his words and his actions.  They were always suspicious of his intentions.  They see his disciples picking up discarded grains in a field to eat, and immediately they want to find something wrong with it.  On our journey of faith, we can always try to find fault with something, find something to criticize in our brothers and sisters.  Or, we can look for blessings in our lives, look for creative ways to live out our faith and grow in our faith.  

      Today’s feast day celebrates a special devotion and apparition of Mary as we commemorate the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  We think of our beloved Carmelite sisters here in Jackson, for which Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a special feast day.  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.  Since the 15th century, popular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel has centered on the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, also known as the Brown Scapular. Traditionally, Mary is said to have given the Scapular to an English Carmelite monk named Saint Simon Stock, which is said to have occurred in the middle of the 13th centuries.

        The feast day was officially recognized by the Church in 1726 under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  This group of hermits at Mount Carmel 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 sisters 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.