Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Patron of Chile, Carmelites
On 16 July 1251 the Virgin Mary, holding the Christ Child, appeared to Saint Simon Stock, the English-born prior general of the Carmelite Order, at Aylesford in Kent. She held out a scapular of brown wool and promised that 'whoever dies wearing it shall not suffer eternal fire.' The brown scapular has been worn by countless laypeople ever since as the visible sign of Mary's protection and a pledge to live as her sons and daughters. The feast also commemorates the foundation of the Carmelite Order on Mount Carmel by hermits inspired by the prophet Elijah, who at the same spring had once vindicated the true God against the prophets of Baal.