Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

TODAY, July 16, is the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel – a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role 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 in South America.

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, a sacramental associated with promises of Mary’s special aid for the salvation of the devoted wearer. Traditionally, Mary is said to have given the Scapular to an early Carmelite named Saint Simon Stock.

Its solemn liturgical feast 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 July 17; on the European mainland, this date conflicted with the feast of St. Alexis, requiring a shift to July 16, which remains the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel throughout the Catholic Church. The Latin poem “Flos Carmeli” which means flower of Carmel first appears as the sequence for this Mass.

In the Philippines, the venerated image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel arrived in the Philippines on May 4, 1618. The Augustinian Recollect missionaries, first Catholic missionaries to come to the islands, brought it with them from Mexico, where it had been donated by the Discalced Carmelite friars of the Monastery of San Jose as a symbol of brotherhood.

The Augustinian Recollects celebrated their great feast last May 4, 2018, on the fourth centenary of the arrival of the ancient image to the island, with a huge program of events, centered on the venerated image.

A plenary indulgence was granted for those who participated in the procession or mass last May 4 and those going on a pilgrimage to the Basilica of San Sebastian in Manila where the venerated image is housed. A plenary indulgence on the Solemnity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel will be also granted from July 15 to midnight of July 16.