Our Lady of Mount Carmel - 16 july
OUR LADY OF CARMEN, Patroness of sailors and fishermen
In Spain, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica is patron saint of the sea, is also patron saint of the Spanish Navy. She is considered Queen and Patroness of Chile, its Armed Forces and Carabineros; She is patroness of the National Police, the National Army, sailors and drivers in Colombia; in Bolivia She is Patroness of the Nation and its Armed Forces; in Peru She is "Patroness of Creoleism" and "Perpetual Mayor of the City of Lima" and in Venezuela She is patroness of the Army and drivers. In addition, She was patroness of the Army of the Andes, She is also patroness of these Latin American countries: Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Lima, El Callao, Puerto Rico and Uruguay; and of Europe: Spain, Italy and Malta.
Prayer:
"O most beautiful Flower of Mount Carmel, Fruitful Vine, Splendour of Heaven, Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me this my necessity. O Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein you are my Mother.
O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and Earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to succour me in this necessity; there are none that can withstand your power.
O, show me herein you are my Mother, O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." (3 times)
Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands. (3 times)
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Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid-13th century. They built in the midst of their hermitages a chapel which they dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, whom they conceived of in chivalric terms as the "Lady of the place." Our Lady of Mount Carmel was adopted in the 19th century as the patron saint of Chile, in South America.
Since the 15th century, popular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel has centered on the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, also known as the Brown Scapular. Traditionally, Mary is said to have given the Scapular to an early Carmelite named Saint Simon Stock (1165-1265). The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16 July.
The solemn liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was probably first celebrated in England in the later part of the 14th century. Its object was thanksgiving to Mary, the patroness of the Carmelite Order, for the benefits she had accorded to it through its difficult early years. The institution of the feast may have come in the wake of the vindication of their title "Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary" at Cambridge, England in 1374. The date chosen was 17 July; on the European mainland this date conflicted with the feast of St. Alexis, requiring a shift to 16 July, which remains the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel throughout the Catholic Church. The Latin poem "Flos Carmeli" (meaning "Flower of Carmel") first appears as the sequence for this Mass.