Mount Carmel, the ridge above the plain of Israel where the prophet Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, drew Latin hermits during the era of the Crusades. Early in the thirteenth century they received a rule of life from Saint Albert, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and dedicated their chapel to the Mother of God; from that dedication they came to be known as the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. When they were driven from the Holy Land they carried the observance to Europe, and the celebration of July 16, kept in the Order from the fourteenth century, was extended to the whole Latin Church in the eighteenth. The Carmelite tradition understands Mary as the model of the contemplative life: the woman who heard the word of God and kept it, whose whole existence was ordered to her Son. Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint John of the Cross, who reformed the Order in sixteenth-century Spain, and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross in later centuries, all belong to this family and shaped Catholic spirituality far beyond it. The brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the best-known devotion of the day. It is a small version of the Carmelite habit, given at enrollment, and the Church presents it as a sign of belonging to Mary and of the intention to imitate her. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy insists that the scapular be understood as an outward sign of a real interior commitment, and warns against treating any sacramental as though it worked automatically or dispensed the wearer from conversion, the sacraments, and the moral life. As an optional memorial the celebration may be chosen or the weekday kept in its place. White vestments are used; the Gospel offered is the scene at Cana or the words of Jesus about those who do the will of his Father.

Optional memorial

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Ordinary time

July 16

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