Our Lady of Mount Carmel

July 16 is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the patronal feast of the Carmelite order. The order traces its origin to the hermits who settled on Mount Carmel near the spring of Elijah in the late 12th century, after the crusader kingdoms opened the Holy Land to Latin pilgrims. The feast commemorates the dedication of the order to Mary, the Sister of Carmel, who is given the brown scapular as her habit.

The scapular — the small brown woolen badge worn over the shoulders — is the most widely distributed sacramental in the Church. According to the Carmelite tradition, the English hermit St. Simon Stock, prior general of the order, received a vision of Mary at Aylesford in Kent on July 16, 1251, in which she gave him the scapular with the promise that "whoever dies wearing this shall not suffer eternal fire." The scapular devotion spread through the medieval Church and remains one of the most popular Catholic devotions.

The Stella Maris monastery on Mount Carmel at Haifa, built by the Carmelites in the 13th century, is the mother house of the order. From Aylesford to Loreto — where the brown scapular was kept in the Holy House — to the confraternities of the scapular in every parish, July 16 is the day of the brown habit.