OUR LADY OF MT CARMEL: SHINING STAR IN MODERNISTIC MURK

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The Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt Carmel whose feast we celebrate tomorrow

St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face ('The Little Flower' - Doctor of the Church.

St Teresa of Jesus (Teresa of Avila) - Doctor of the Church.

St John of the Cross - Doctor of the Church.

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) - co-patron of Europe (with St Catherine of Siena).

It's not widely known that lay people can join this illustrious company of saints in the Discalced Order of Carmelites (OCD) or the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (OCarm). But for men and women who are searching for 'the pearl of great price' mentioned in the Gospels - the grace, the gift of contemplation - the Carmelites are there to help you find it.

At least one fully-professed lay Carmelite grew up believing that the Carmelites are the creme de la creme of the Catholic Church, mainly because the 'Black Joes' (Sisters of St Joseph of Nazareth) were always banging on about 'The Little Way' of 'The Little Flower', which seemed to amount just to 'offering it up'. 

It was what most people would call a chance encounter, with a woman she scarcely knew who had entered a Carmelite monastery at age 18 but had to leave because of ill-health, which introduced her to the lay Carmelites and a determined pursuit of the grace of contemplation. 

The Prophet Elijah, whose defence of God's law in a solemn contest on Mt Carmel and intimate experience of the living God made him founder of the Carmelite ideal

St John of the Cross, the finest poet in the Spanish language, mystic and co-founder with St Teresa of the Discalced Carmelites; his works The Ascent of Mt Carmel, The Dark Night etc are with St Teresa's unsurpassed as spiritual classics

“Contemplation is nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God, which, if not hampered, fires the soul in the spirit of love.”
– St. John of the Cross

 

St Teresa of Jesus (Avila), mystic and writer of spiritual classics The Way of Perfection and Interior Castle et al

“Mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”
-St. Teresa of Jesus

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), German Jewish philosopher and writer who converted to the Catholic Church and was gassed at  Auschwitz

This small company may be described as the finest flowers of the Carmelite Order, but there are others, mostly relatively recent and all an antidote to the heresy of Modernism now afflicting the Church. 

Carmelites - lay and religious - all wear the brown scapular which the Mother of God carried and held out to the three shepherd children during the great Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917. 

"Our Lady of Mt Carmel can be seen as representing the Star of the Sea that first appeared to St Elijah as 'a small foot-shaped cloud' (3 Kings 18:44). In doing so she appeaared to symbolize not only the end of the drought which afflicted the Israelites, but also to signify the end of their doctrinal confusion. 

The message of Fatima is a compendium of traditional Catholic Church teaching and a reaffirmation of the Gospel" (to which the Carmelites could arguably be described as the most faithful of all religious orders). 

Tradition says that after this encounter with the 'type' of Our Blessed Mother, Elijah made his abode on Mt Carmel, awaiting the birth of the Mother of the Messiah (Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ.) Devotion then began to Our Lady of Mt Carmel before the time of Christ. 

When Our Lady of Mt Carmel gave the Brown Scapular to St Simon Stock some 766 years ago on July 16 1251, she said:

"Whoever dies in this garment will not suffer everlasting fire. It is a token of salvaation. It safeguards in danger. It pledges us to peace and the Covenant."

Wearing the Brown Scapular with devotion every day, and living the Fatima message, will serve to bring you peace in this life, and, one day, happiness forever in the life of the world to come" - Fr Ladis Cizik, The Remnant.

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