The Carmelite monastery here in Jackson, Mississippi has a novena each year that leads up to today’s feast day, celebrating the 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 era of the Christian Church, hermits began living there in the 12th century and dedicated a chapel on the mountain to our Mother Mary. This evolved into the celebration of a special mass and office of readings dedicated to Mary as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. 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 13th 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 in the 13th century. 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. Jesus tells us to come to him with all that is burdening us. Mary will help bring us to her son with all that is weighing us down.
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