Our Lady of Mount Carmel

For other uses, see Our Lady of Mount Carmel (disambiguation).
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Our Lady of Mount Carmel by Pietro Novelli, 1641
Approval30 January 1226, during the pontificate of Pope Honorius III
1587, during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V
PatronageCarmelites, Chile, Bolivia, Catemaco, Aylesford, Roraima, Birkirkara, Jaboticabal, Valletta, Pernambuco, Villalba, Hatillo, Higuerote, Carlopoli, Barasoain Church, protection from harm, protection from dangerous situations, deliverance from purgatory
Feast dayJuly 16

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, or Virgin of Carmel is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated as patroness of the Carmelite Order.

The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid-13th century. They built in the midst of their hermitages a chapel which they dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, whom they conceived of in chivalric terms as the "Lady of the place." Our Lady of Mount Carmel was adopted in the 19th century as the patron saint of Chile.

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 early Carmelite named Simon Stock (1165–1265). The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16 July.[1][2]

The solemn liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was probably first celebrated in England in the later part of the 14th century. Its object was thanksgiving to Mary, the patroness of the Carmelite Order, for the benefits she had accorded to it through its difficult early years. The institution of the feast may have come in the wake of the vindication of their title "Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary" at Cambridge, England, in 1374. The date chosen was 17 July; on the European mainland this date conflicted with the feast of Saint Alexis, requiring a shift to 16 July, which remains the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on the Roman Calendar of the Catholic Church. The Latin poem Flos Carmeli (meaning "Flower of Carmel") first appears as the sequence for this Mass.[1]

  1. ^ a b Bede Edwards, OCDS. "St. Simon Stock—The Scapular Vision & the Brown Scapular Devotion." Carmel Clarion Volume XXI, pp 17–22, July–August 2005, Discalced Carmelite Secular Order, Washington Province.
  2. ^ Scapular Devotion." July–August 2005, Discalced Carmelite Secular Order, Washington Province.