Friday, July 16, 2021

If you want to continue receiving homilettes by email, please send me your name and email address.  (If you have already done so, there is no need to repeat.)  I have been having difficulty adopting another mailing service.  However, Google seems to be sending them out for the time being at least.  If and when it stops, I will send out the homilettes to all who send me their addresses if the email service problem is not worked  by then. Thank you for your readership.  cm 

(Optional) Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

(Exodus 11:1—12:14; Matthew 12:1-8)

The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel invites a reflection on the scapular.  It is said, without historical documentation, that Mary gave the scapular to St. Simon Stock, a general of the Carmelite Order.  Scapulars were first used by members of ancient religious orders as a piece of clothing, an additional layer to protect one from the cold. 

After a while, the scapular on a symbolic value.  It was equated with the yoke and even the cross of Christ which one bears with great efficacy.  With the founding of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century, a smaller scapular made of the same cloth and color as the whole habit was given to members of the “third order.” These devotees did not live in community but practiced the spirituality which the scapular represented.  By the sixteenth century the scapular became diminutive – no more than two inches squared. 

Sometimes claims were made that wearers of the scapular would never go to hell.  Such was the cIaim made by Carmelites about their brown scapular.  It is said that Our Lady promised that wearers of the scapular until death would be admitted to heaven on the first Saturday after dying.  However, the claim presumes that the person wearing the scapular would lead a life in accordance with the ideals of the Order.  (To say that the mere wearing a scapular assures eternal life would mock the gospels.)  In this sense the scapular is not like the blood of lamb which painted on lintels protected the children of Israel from the scourge of death.  That blood prefigured the blood of Christ shed on the cross which does bring salvation to all who accept him and his revelation fully.