Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
"Mary, whom we invoke today under the title of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel... had the mission of engendering in time the eternal Son of God. In her, the maternal vocation reached the peak of its dignity and potential."
On the eve of the solemnity, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity writes to a close friend to assure her of Elizabeth's faithful prayers "during the great novena in preparation for Our Lady of Mount Carmel."
We thank you for joining us in this year's Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. As we conclude, St. Titus Brandsma leads us as we contemplate the Gospel for this Solemnity, the Virgin standing beneath the Cross of Jesus.
The General Chapter declared this to be the principal feast of the Order in the 17th c.The sacred scriptures speak of the beauty of Mount Carmel where the prophet Elijah defended the faith of Israel in the living God. There, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, under the title of “Saint Mary of Mount Carmel,” the Order of Carmelites had its formal beginning. From the fourteenth century this title, recalling the countless blessings of its patroness, began to be celebrated solemnly, first in England and then gradually throughout the whole Order. It attained its supreme place from the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the General Chapter declared it to be the principal feast of the Order, and Paul V recognized it as the feast of the Scapular Confraternity.
St. Titus Brandsma once again turns to St. John of the Cross and the Living Flame of Live to help explain the profound mystery of Mary's motherhood of God: "casting a shadow is similar to protecting, favoring, and granting graces."
Saint Titus Brandsma describes the most thrilling moment of Saturday evening devotions in the Church of the Carmelites: the solemn chanting of the Salve Regina. "All now stand before the altar of Mary... above which the statue of Mary glimmers in the light."
St. Titus Brandsma applies St. John of the Cross's image of the clear pane of glass and the ray of sunlight to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
St. Titus Brandsma advises us that when we face difficulties, "Pray with Mary the Mother of the Lord. Turn your eye to God and ask Him what you should do."
St. Titus Brandsma explains that when "the Holy Virgin gifted the Holy Scapular to the Order as the pledge of her special protection... the Netherlands already had a cloister" founded by St. Simon Stock himself.
"...it is on this evening that the Carmelite Fathers hold their Benediction in honor of Our Lady of the Holy Scapular, in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel."
"O Jesus, what a new and appalling suffering it must have been for You, to be forced to cause your beloved Mother to share in the suffering that You had taken on Yourself for our sake..."
In Mary, we see the most beautiful image of our union with God. Mary is thus our Guide on our way to the mystical union with God.
“The volume of the breviary I have with me has a beautiful picture of Our Lady of Mount Carmel... I simply opened the breviary on a little corner shelf above my bed to the left. When I am sitting at the table I only have to glance up in order to see her, and when I am in bed my glance falls directly on the Virgin with the star, 'The Hope of All Carmelites'.”
Father Paul-Marie of the Cross explains the meaning of the Marian title, "Beauty of Carmel." For Carmelites, Mary is the brightness of eternal light...
When a smallpox epidemic broke out in Baltimore in the closing months of the year 1882, many persons begged the Discalced Carmelite nuns to pray for an end to the calamity. The nuns chanted the now-famous prayer, Stella Caeli Extirpavit to Our Lady, for help in time of pestilence.
It is hardly surprising to learn that the poet Jessica Powers was a great hymn writer, too. One of the hymns that she wrote for the Carmelite liturgies appears on the Solemnity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In it, she mentions the gift of the scapular.
In her article for the Augsburg Post in March 1935, St Edith Stein mentioned the origin of the brown scapular of Carmel: "the Blessed Virgin appeared to the general of the Order, Simon Stock, an Englishman, and gave him the scapular." Edith takes this piece of Carmelite tradition and firmly plants it within the Order's Marian spirituality.
In 1915, Titus Brandsma wrote an article that was published in the review 'Karmelrozen' that describes Saturday Marian devotions in Carmelite churches. "Simply by thinking of Mary's help," he wrote, "we feel ourselves strengthened in our weakness."
From the Scheveningen prison, Titus Brandsma writes: "There was no holy card of the Virgin Mary in my breviary, yet her image is obligatory in the cell of every Carmelite; I had to find a solution for this..."
Saint Edith Stein writes, "The legend of the Order tells us that the Mother of God would have liked to remain with the hermit brothers on Mount Carmel. We can certainly understand that she felt drawn to the place where she had been venerated through the ages..."
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Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
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