Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who promises salvation to anyone who becomes "his"
Of Cristina Siccardi
Il 16 July a very important Marian feast occurs in the Tradition of the Church: Our Lady of Mount Carmel, one of the oldest and most loved devotions in Christianity, linked to the history and spiritual values of the Order of Friars of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Carmelites). The liturgical feast was established to commemorate the apparition of 16 July 1251 a san Simone Stock, at the time prior general of the Carmelite order, during which Our Lady gave him a scapular (from Latin scapula, shoulder) in fabric, revealing to him notable privileges connected to his cult.
In the First Book of Kings of the Old Testament it is said that the prophet Elijah, who gathered a community of men right on Mount Carmel (in Aramaic «garden»), he worked in defense of the purity of faith in God, winning a challenge against the priests of the god Baal. Who, afterwards, Christian monastic communities were established. The Crusaders, in the 11th century, they found some religious people in this place, probably of Maronite rite, who called themselves heirs of the disciples of the prophet Elijah and followed the rule of Saint Basil. In the 1154 the French nobleman Bertoldo retreated to the mountain around this time, arrived in Palestine with his cousin Aimerio from Limoges, patriarch of Antioch, and it was decided to reunite the hermits for cenobitic life. The religious built a small church in the middle of their cells, dedicating it to the Virgin and took the name of Brothers of Santa Maria del Monte Carmelo. Carmel acquired, in this way, its two characterizing elements: the reference to Elijah and the link to the Holy Mary. Read More
