The Mother of God is the patroness of the
Order of Carmelites, professed men and women religious who trace their
spiritual lineage to the prophet Elijah, who lived on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land.
The Mt. Carmel of Elijah would have been
a strange, off-putting place to us. The
prophets of Israel were not simply solitary figures, but guilds
or bands who inhabited the wilderness
of Mt. Carmel. These prophets would have
been fearsome folks, known for their asceticism, trances, and visions, associated
with powers that to the modern mind would seem like sorcery. To us, accustomed to a religion that is
benignly therapeutic, they would seem wild, untamed and dangerous.
How many of us imagine Our Lady as being
anything like those prophets? Or like
Elijah? She is likely for most of us a gentle woman who speaks quiet words of wisdom and consolation. And this is true. But it is not the whole truth of the Mother
of our Lord.
Our Lady does not speak often in the
Scriptures, but what she does say is always significant. Her longest speech in the Bible is known to
us as the Magnificat. If we consider
her words, we might note with surprise that there is something
fierce about the mother of Christ. She
speaks in her Magnificat like
Elijah. Her words testify to the Lord
who arrives with all his power to set right a world gone wrong.
Remember this: without God and what God has done for us in
Christ, nothing of who we are matters at all.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel shouts this truth out to a world absorbed in the
ego and preoccupied with the trivial. She
speaks and tells us, as Elijah and the prophets did centuries ago, to repent
and believe. For the Lord in his might
is coming and he is coming to set this world right.
--Fr. Steve
Grunow,
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel,
Word
on Fire
To read Fr. Grunow’s
complete article on the Word on Fire blog, click here.
Image source: Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church,
Mill Valley, https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/
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