Our Lady of Mount Carmel

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 40, 21 October 1925, Page 57

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

} The angelic youth, St. Stanislaus of Kostka felt a celestial and divine pleasure every time he pronounced this phrase, which filled Iris lips with sweetness and his heart with love:' The Mother of God is mv Mother. The sweet and caressed phrase by the illustrious son of Loyola cannot be more exact and divine.. The whole of humanity can repeat it with the same exactitude that the holy novice of the Company of Jesus repeated it. But from all humanity only the Carmelites may add to that phrase a word which is the blazon of all their greatness and noble titles before the great number of lovers that the Mother of God h.as in the world. Only the Carmelites may say with all historical exactitude, based even on the H oly Scriptures: We were the first in the world to pronounce this divine and redeeming phrase: The Mother of God is our Mother. When the great prophet. Elias, on the summit of Mount Carmel brought down the fire from the heavens to destroy all the false prophets of Baal, upon the ashes of that sacred fire and upon the profane ashes of those false prophets. Elias knelt and God showed him in a most beautiful cloud which arose gracefully from the waters as an immaculate tulle that covered the earth, the likeness of Mary, 900 years before this Lady appeared on earth. From that famous moment in history. Elias, the great 'Captain of the forces of God, on the same summit of tin* Holy Mountain of Carmel erected a temple to that gracious Lady that God had shown him, painted on a cloud. That temple which Elias erected on the summit of Carmel to the Mother of God 900 years before she appeared in the world, is the ancestral homo of.-the Carmelites and the sanctuary of their love. Sacred Fire. The ashes of the sacred fire that came down at the words of command of Elias, and the profane ashes of the false prophets which covered the rocks of Carmel do not lack significance and symbolism. The significance and symbolism of that fire which Elias-brought down from heaven and the ashes of the false prophets upon which he erected the first Marian temple the world had is great and sublime. The fire which Elias brought down from heaven symbolises and signifies the perpetual incense that the Carmelites would offer to Mary in the world.

Carmel is the incensory with,which the Carmelites have offered incense to Mary, spreading throughout the entire world the soft perfume of her virtues and divine purity. There on the summit of Carmel was born the first Marian Carmelite monachism, model of all the monachisms of Egypt, of Tebaida, of the shores of the Nile and of all the forests where the disciples of Elias scattered to.venerate the future Mother of God and of Man. The profane ashes which remained on the rocks of Carmel symbolise and signify the impieties of the world, burn(i! by the lovers of Mary. The lovie and devotion for Mary is a sacred fire which burns all the impieties of the world, and even of the ashes of impiety God makes use to elevate temples to His Mother. ' This has always been the mission of the Carmelites, since the time of their Father and Founder, the prophet Elias, up to the present time, to venerate Mary, to (ill the world with temples, although it be necessary to form their walls with ashes of impiety. Who is Our Lady of Mount Carmel? The tongue is not able to define her but the heart is. She is the Virgin of first love for men. She is the Virgin that descends to Purgatory to take away the souls that suffer, to rejoice in heaven. She is the redeeming Virgin, because it Christ redeemed the world with a cross, the Virgin of Carmel after the Cross of Calvary aids Christ in redeeming the world with her Holy, Carmelite Scapular. Carmelite Scapular. The Carmelite Scapular is the heart of the Mother of God and the Mother of man, who distributes it to the world by means of her favorite sous, tlis Carmelites, who are her chaplains and apostles. As Christ on the night of the supper distributed His Life and Love among His Apostles by means of the Eucharist, so also docs the V irgin of Carmel distribute her Life and Love by means of her Holy Scapular. There may he those who fear the Cross of Christ; hut there is no cue who fears the heart of His Mother, which is the Carmelite •Scapular. Kissing it we may say: The Mother of God is also my Mother because she has given me her heart with this Scapular which is a pledge of salvation. Among the thousands of saints, sages, warriors and artists who have .adorned their

breasts with the Carmelite Scapular, and have kissed it as a token of salvation, is the most beautiful figure of our own Little Flower of Jesus. A loving Mother, from her Carmel gathered the most beautiful flowers that her most favored daughter might let them fall upon the world as a shower of love. The sweetest day of the life of the Little Flower was the day when the Holy Scapular ot Carmel covered the breast of that Little Queen who cherished her Carmelite Scapular more than the kings their royal sceptres, and the warriors their swords of victory. The saintly Virgin of Lisieux without the Scapular of Carmel would not he to-day such a charming Saint, winning the affection of the hearts of all the world. 1 The Scapular was her lyre, her gospel, her sword of victory, and all her apostolate of love. Greatness draws and conquers hearts. Clothing beautifies and covers. The dress of the Mother of God, which is the Holy Scapular of Carmel, draws, conquers, beautifies and covers with the warmth of glory, Lev. Richard Planelles. 0.C.D.. in Little Floirrv Magazine.