By Mary Beth Bracy, Catholic Exchange, July 15, 2022
Mary Beth Bracy is a writer who is blessed to research, publish, and speak extensively on various aspects of Catholic spirituality. …
When I was growing up, there was a Carmelite monastery in my diocese. My mother brought me with her for the special Mass and blessing of the roses several times on the Feast of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Years later, a Secular Carmelite gave us a beautiful painting of Our Lady of Mount Carmel which hung there. It depicts the Blessed Mother holding the Baby Jesus with great tenderness, while He is caressing her face. Both Virgin and Child have the same aqua colored eyes that seem to look at you entreatingly, beckoning for you to enter their love. As I’m saying my nightly prayers, I’ve developed the habit of gazing on this image for a few moments and entrusting everything to them. Draped on the right hand of Our Lady, which is also cradling the Baby Jesus’, is a Brown Scapular.
While on a World Youth Day pilgrimage in 1997, I was blessed to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Aylesford, England. This marks the site where Our Lady appeared to Saint Simon Stock on July 16, 1251. He was eighty years old and, after praying for years for a sign from Mary and help for the Carmelite Order, was discouraged. Fr. Albert H. Dolan, O. Carm recounts that: …
