16 July 2024 - homily for feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel - Wednesday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time - Matthew 11:25-27

The Carmelite monastery here in Jackson, Mississippi has a novena each year leading up to today’s feast day, which celebrates a special devotion and apparition of Mary in Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In the Old Testament, Mount Carmel was a place of refuge. In the Christian era, hermits began living there in the 12th century, dedicating a chapel on the mount to 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 presented the scapular to an English Carmelite monk named Saint Simon Stock in the 12th century, which leads to the devotion that we have in the Brown Scapular today. 

This 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. That order went through a reform movement in the 16th century under the leadership of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. 

In the different ways Mary appears to the faithful, she always points us to her son in a very special way. Jesus tells us to that we can only know the Father through the son. We come to the faith through Jesus. And Mary helps us in that process. May the intercession and prayers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel lead us to her son.