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The Catholic Church celebrates the optional Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on 16th July. It was first instituted in the late 14th century in commemoration of the approval of the rule of the Carmelite Order a hundred years earlier.
According to legend, a religious community was established even before the time of Christ on Mount Carmel. This is the mountain overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on which the prophet Elijah successfully challenged the Priests of Baal and won the people to the true God. The optional Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel entered the Calendar of the Universal Church in the early 18th century.
Mount Carmel was taken by the Muslims in 1291, and the Friars were killed and the convent burned. The spread of the Carmelites in Europe is largely attributable to the work of Saint Simon Stock (1247–1265).
According to tradition, Our Lady of Mount Carmel appeared to the Prior General, Saint Simon Stock, at Aylesford, England, on 16th July 1251. The Blessed Virgin promised him, oppressed with worries, that whoever would wear the Carmelite habit devoutly would receive the gift of final perseverance. The habit was taken to mean the Scapular in particular.
The Church’s official position regarding the Brown Scapular is that it is a garment that we wear as both a sign of our belonging to Mary and a pledge of her maternal protection in this life and the next.
Sources: EWTN, Catholic News Agency, Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart
2July 16, 2025 585
