From: trudie.Miller@cox.net   
      
   July 16th - Our Lady of Mount Carmel   
      
   What is the link between Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of the Mount   
   Carmel, since she appeared wearing the Carmelite habit in one of the   
   apparitions? You know that at the Fatima apparitions Our Lady normally wore   
   a white habit with a gold trim and a blue belt at her waist. But during an   
   apparition to the children when the miracle of the sun occurred, she   
   appeared wearing the Carmelite habit representing the glorious mysteries of   
   the Rosary.   
      
   Our Lady does not do anything by chance, so the first question leads to   
   another: What is the relation among Our Lady of the Carmel, the glorious   
   mysteries and Our Lady of Fatima?   
      
   The invocation of Our Lady of the Carmel originates from Mount Carmel in the   
   Holy Land, where hermits used to live at the time of the Old Covenant   
   praying and waiting for a Virgin-Mother who would come and bring salvation   
   for the whole human race. They were following the example of Elias, the   
   Prophet, who was at the Mount Carmel praying for the salvation of the   
   Israel, which was passing through a terrible drought, when he saw a little   
   cloud in the distant horizon. He hoped that it would bring the much-needed   
   rain to Israel. The small cloud grew in size and covered the whole sky, and   
   finally the hoped-for rain came to save the people.   
      
   Elias understood that this cloud was a symbol of the Virgin to come,   
   relating it to prophecies of Isaiah that spoke of Our Lady. Those who   
   followed his example also prayed for the coming of the Virgin who would be   
   the Mother of the Messiah. In Old Covenant times, therefore, the hermits of   
   the Mount Carmel had the spiritual mission of foreseeing the coming of Our   
   Lady and praying for it. They were persecuted by evil people, and also by   
   members of the decadent Synagogue; notwithstanding, the hermits of Mount   
   Carmel remained faithful.   
      
   Finally Our Lady came, and she received the greatest glorification of any   
   living creature: in her the Divine Word, the Second Person of the Holy   
   Trinity, was made flesh. She became the spouse of the Holy Ghost. Since she   
   was without original sin, she was not subject to death. But she chose to   
   die, to imitate Our Lord. So, she had a very easy death, which the Church   
   with her incomparable language called the dormitio, the sleep of Our Lady.   
   It was an actual death that entailed the separation of body and soul, but as   
   smooth as possible. Afterward, she was resurrected by Our Lord and carried   
   to Heaven by the Angels. This ensemble of privileges constitutes the   
   greatest glorification a creature had ever had. It is because of this that   
   Our Lady of the Assumption is also called Our Lady of the Glory.   
      
   Therefore, the Old Testament history of the Order of Carmel closes with an   
   extraordinary glorification and the fulfillment of its expectations. Through   
   centuries of silence, isolation, and persecution, the followers of Elias   
   advanced step by step to the victory and glory.   
      
   The history of the Order of the Carmel begins again in the New Covenant. St.   
   John the Baptist was also a follower of Elias, as were many of his   
   disciples, St. John, St. James and others. They had the joy to see and know   
   Our Lady while she was alive. They venerated the same Virgin-Mother who had   
   been anticipated by all their ancestors. One can easily imagine that at   
   times she would speak to them as Carmelites and confirm their vocation and   
   reward them for being her first devotees in history.   
      
   One also can imagine the pious and mysterious relations between Our Lady and   
   Elias, who is still alive, as you know. It seems reasonable to think that   
   the devotion of Holy Servitude (Holy Slavery) to Our Lady, developed by St.   
   Louis Grignon de Montfort, was somehow known and practiced by those first   
   sons of Our Lady, the Carmelites.   
      
   The Carmelite Order continued to exist in the Holy Land, but the Christendom   
   of that time did not take the advantage it should have from its presence.   
   That Christendom entered into decadence, and as punishment received the   
   invasion of the Saracens, which destroyed it. At the time of the Crusades,   
   the Carmelites came to the West as an almost unknown religious order, waning   
   and without supporters.   
   Our Lady gives the scapular to St. Simon Stock.   
      
   On this shriveling trunk Our Lady made a vibrant flower bloom - St. Simon   
   Stock. After he was elected General of the Order in 1247, he asked for her   
   protection for the Order. She appeared to him and gave him the scapular,   
   that is, the promise of eternal life to those who would enter the Order and   
   die in it. The Order bloomed again, and a new period of glory came to it.   
   Among the glories of the Carmelites, its greatest is to always have had   
   devotion to Our Lady.   
      
   It also had the glory of having a St. Teresa de Avila, and more recently the   
   glory of having St. Therese of the Infant Jesus, who could be our   
   contemporary if she would not have died so young.   
      
   Today Christendom is again in decadence. Our Lady came to Fatima to announce   
   this fall, the chastisement, and the victory with the famous phrase: "In the   
   end my Immaculate Heart will triumph." In that same set of apparitions in   
   which she announced her victory, she desired to appear in the habit of the   
   Carmelite Order, as a way to confirm her age-old predilection for it and to   
   indicate that this Order will be a part of her glorious Reign. With the   
   habit, she symbolically made a synthesis of the past and the future, at the   
   very moment that she announced the end of an era and the beginning of   
   another.   
      
   The feast day of Our Lady of the Mount Carmel is a very dear feast to us,   
   followers of Elias the Prophet, the first devotee of Our Lady in History.   
      
   Let us glorify her and ask her to prepare us, who are Carmelites in spirit,   
   to pass by the chastisement and to be living stones in the Reign of Mary.   
      
   By the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)   
      
      
   Quote:   
   To reject but one article of faith taught by the Church is enough to destroy   
   faith.   
   - St. Thomas Aquinas   
      
   Bible Quote   
   10 If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into   
   the house nor say to him, God speed you. (2 John 1:10)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   This is the Traditional Gradual for the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel:   
      
   O Virgin Mary, blessed and venerable art Thou: who without blemish to thy   
   maidenhood, didst become the Mother of God.  He whom the whole world   
   availeth not to contain, enclosed Himself in thy womb, being made man.   
      
   Alleluia, alleluia.  V. Through thee, O Mother of God, is the life we had   
   lost given back to us: for, from heaven receiving Him who became thy son,   
   thou on the world hast bestowed its Savior.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)