Another note on the Mount Carmel ScapularĪ pious tradition tells how Our Lady appeared to St. Today there are two great Carmelite families - the Order of Carmelites (OCarm) and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (ODC). These are the worldly attachments, the false gods, our inordinate desires. Teresa demanded the same single-mindedness. She compares the human heart to an 'interior castle', surrounded by 'snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures'. Hence the motto of the Carmelite order is the quotation from 1 Kings 19:10,14: 'With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord God of hosts.'Ī reform of the order took place in Spain, carried out by Teresa of Avila with the help of John of the Cross this group separated and became the Discalced Carmelites. If your love is real, it will be all-consuming. It is like falling in love and the pearl of great price. The people returned to Yahweh.Ĭarmelite spirituality remembers this radical contest. In a dramatic contest of sacrifice, the prophets of Baal are defeated. When asked about their spiritual roots, Carmelites could not cite a Francis or a Dominic, but recall the prophet Elijah, whose exploits are narrated in 1 Kings 17-22. He appears like a thunderbolt at a time of drought, warning King Ahab that the reason a drought has come on Israel is that he and his people have deserted Yahweh and gone after the Baals (1 Kings 18:18). Elijah warns: 'How long do you mean to hobble first on one leg then on another? If Yahweh is God, follow him if Baal, follow him' (1 Kings 18:21). Unlike other religious families, the Carmelites have no founder as such. At first they settled in Cyprus and Sicily. By 1240 they were in Aylesford, Kent, England, and in 1245 they held their first general chapter at Aylesford where Simon Stock, then eighty years old was chosen as general. They were accepted as one of the new mendicant (literally, 'begging') orders, like the Franciscans and Dominicans. However, in 1238 this group was expelled from the Holy Land by the Saracens and they emigrated to Europe, where they took on a wider ministry (preaching, teaching, administering the sacraments). He responded with what is now called the Primitive Rule of Carmel. They saw themselves as succeeding the schools of the prophets in ancient Israel.Įarly in the 13th century (1206-14), these hermits asked Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, for a rule of life in conformity with their proposed lifestyle. Tradition traces the origins of the order to a small group of hermits - some of them crusaders - who gathered near the well of Elijah on the slopes of Mount Carmel in the Holy Land at the end of the 12th century. The spiritual focus of the Carmelite Order is on contemplative prayer. It signifies commitment to follow Jesus, like Mary, the perfect model of a disciple of Jesus. It also became a badge of association with a particular religious group in a lay third order. In some religious orders, like the Carmelites, the scapular became a symbol of their way of life.

With the passage of time, it got a symbolic meaning: the cross to be borne every day as disciples and followers of Christ. Patrick Duffy tells the story of the Carmelites.Ī scapular was originally a form of clothing, which monks wore when they were working.

According to a pius tradition this took place at Cambridge in England in 1251. Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a title given to Mary, the mother of Jesus, in honour of her having given the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel to Saint Simon Stock (see image). Mary is celebrated on this day as a model of reflection, solitude, and prayer. Commemorates the Virgin Mary as associated with Mount Carmel (Israel), site of the prophet Elijah's altar to the one true God and of the twelfth century eremitical forerunners of the Carmelites. The cult of Mary under this title originated in the fourteenth century and came to be observed throughout the West during the eighteenth century.

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