The devotion comes from the Theatine tradition and from Venerable Ursula Benincasa, who in 1617, at Naples on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, received a vision of the Blessed Virgin clothed in a white garment beneath an azure mantle, and asked that the graces she had been shown be extended to the faithful who would wear a small light-blue scapular bearing on one side the image of the Immaculate Conception and on the other the name 'Mary.' Benincasa (1547-1618) had founded the Oblates of the Immaculate Conception in 1583, and her institutes were placed under the direction of the Theatine Fathers. At the Theatines' request Pope Clement X granted permission to bless the scapular and to invest people with it, and attached indulgences to it, by an apostolic breve of 30 January 1671. It is one of the five best-known small scapulars, a private devotion rather than a liturgical act, and nothing is promised here that the cited sources do not report.

Be enrolled by a priest with the faculty to invest in this scapular, and then wear it constantly over the shoulders beneath your clothing. Let it hold you to the purity it signifies: renew each day a short act of consecration to Our Lady conceived without sin, pray a Hail Mary in honour of her Immaculate Conception, and ask her help in whatever most needs cleansing in your life.

Citation

Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, 4th ed. (Apostolic Penitentiary, 1999), grant on the use of articles of devotion: a partial indulgence for the devout use of a crucifix, rosary, scapular or medal properly blessed by a priest. The governing norms are those of Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967).

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