Last year, on the Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Patroness of our parish, Fr. Pat shared the following:
Our Lady of Mount Carmel was chosen as the Patroness of our parish because the original church was on Summit Avenue, on a hill, and that reminded people of Mount Carmel in Israel, which overlooks Haifa. Mount Carmel has had great significance throughout salvation history. Elijah defended the faith of the people of Israel there, and God defeated the baals; it is also there that Elijah waited for the rains to come after three years of drought.
After the Crusades, a group of men gathered on Mount Carmel to form a community of hermits, but they were repeatedly attacked by the Saracens. In 1251, Simon Stock prayed to the Virgin Mary for protection against them, and she appeared to them with the scapular. This scapular was not like the one that many members of the laity wear today (and that we see in our front window). For the men of Simon Stock’s time, the scapular was a large swath of cloth that became part of their habit, draped over the front and back and reminiscent of St. Patrick's Breastplate: Christ is before me and Christ is behind me and there is no time when Christ is not with me.
In the readings often chosen for this feast, Zechariah 2 speaks of a promise that the Lord will come and dwell among us and engage us in a relationship and be there for us. He will help us, support us, and guide us; we must open to him. In Galatians 4, Paul speaks of how the Lord came to be among us, born of a woman. Our Canticle from Luke 1 reminds us that Mary knew what it meant to have the Lord that close because she bore him, and, in John 19, at the foot of the cross, she knew that that would be an experience for all for years to come: that Christ would dwell in all who opened themselves to that relationship.
The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is about relationship with God and relationship with other. Our Gospel shows how Jesus continues that connection in community; it is at the cross, when Jesus confers his Mother to the Beloved Disciple, that the Church is born, when relationship is established, and when we are established in relationship with one another. This is what we as a parish are meant to be about.
Let us therefore continue to work at being a model of hospitality and a model of generosity, because the Lord God dwells within us and leads us to Jesus Christ, who speaks from our hearts and speaks to our world through us.
--Fr. Patrick Michaels, Homily, July 16, 2022
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s 2022 homily for the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which can be found at 14:00 on the following video: https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/videos/1145935259323187
Source of images: Photos by Fr. Patrick Michaels, St. Simon Stock receiving the scapular from Mary and the Child Jesus, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Mill Valley, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=656378253194259&set=a.556998299798922
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