Angels and The Brown Scapular and Our Lady of Mount Carmel

One sometimes needs to wonder what exactly the purview of a Guardian Angel is. Most practically they should keep us from danger, but if our lives are already sufficiently sheltered, then they may extend their mandate toward guiding us morally or intellectually, in that way helping to guard us from foolishness. Or maybe, not to always be focused on preventing a negative, working only on Damage Control – on shielding what may already be a very flawed beings in an effort to keep them from getting any worse, perhaps our Angels may sometimes take on an entirely positive goal, to move us toward those moments of thoughtful epiphany where we might realize something important enough to better our character and to make us a better people for it. Or maybe they consider it important enough if they can only just make us happier for a moment.

Angels like to work in riddles. I have known instances where an Angel will simply come out and flat tell me something directly, but then it’s so hard to grasp the implications of what’s said that it might as well be a riddle. So the impression I get is that they do not just give out the answers. And that is why they to work in riddles, asking those puzzling questions, giving nothing directly, but only planting seeds, not giving Knowledge but arranging so that it will grow.

Not more than just a few years ago, an Angel came to me with something of a riddle – “Why is it that the only religious garb Our Lady has ever worn is that of a Carmelite Nun?” He was referring to Our Lady of Mount Carmel who has made repeated Apparitions wearing that particular habit. Ordinarily Our Lady appears in fashionable clothes suitable for each particular occasion – She obviously treats style as an important factor in Her considerations, and the Queen of Heaven doesn’t need to keep any vows of poverty. So it is a bit curious that She should ever dress in the plain clothes of a Nun. And, then, when she does, it is only as a Carmelite. And I was to figure out why.

First I did some research. I had been brought into the Catholic Church by the Carmelite Order. The clerics of my first Church were all Carmelites and my God Mother was in their Third Order. So I already knew something about the Carmelites, as though by osmosis. One particular Tradition of theirs is uniquely intriguing – that of the Brown Scapular. It presents a kind of loophole in the ordinary Christian Procedures of Salvation. I myself got a Brown Scapular before I was even officially all the way a Catholic. Perhaps I should say a word on the Brown Scapular, which really brings up the story of the Carmelites themselves since the two stories can hardly be separated. A thousand years ago, when Christendom rallied its Knights to protect the Holy Land from the first waves of the Barbarian Invasion from the East, as much protecting Islamic Civilization as Christian, many good men found themselves far away from home. A certain few Crusaders, who were from a Land where every Church was called an “Our Lady”, had been surprised to find a Marian Devotion already in place in the Holy Land when they arrived. It was a local Religious Order of Monks that called themselves the Carmelites, named after their main Monastery situated on the slopes of old Mount Carmel. The Crusaders had been shown a small Chapel in the Mount Carmel complex, which even back then had been more than a thousand years old, a Shrine to Our Lady that was said to have been Her room when She had come to Mount Carmel seeking refuge during one of the earliest Persecutions.

Some of the Crusaders were so impressed by this Marian Devotion, that they joined the Order and became Carmelites themselves. But later when they returned to Europe they ran into the problem of their local Bishops questioning their affiliation in what was not a recognized Catholic Brotherhood. So petitions were forwarded to the Pope asking for approval of the ‘new’ Order, but the paperwork dragged on slowly. The Leader of the Carmelite’s Petition Movement, Simon Stock, was imprisoned for safe-keeping, probably so he could not drum up any new support for the Carmelites before anybody could be certain it would actually be ratified. Apparently being incarcerated was very demoralizing for him and so Our Lady came to Him as an Apparition, for the first time in Her Carmelite Garb, and for his consolation presented him with The Brown Scapular saying “Those who die wearing the Brown Scapulars will not know Hell Fire”, and went on to say that on the First Saturday of each month she would personally fetch from Purgatory all those found wearing a Brown Scapular. I can only guess that Our Lady has always been a bit uncomfortable with the General Doctrines of Christian Salvation that posit the necessity for Murdering Her Son and then of having everyone agree, as a matter of Faith, that it was s good thing that He was killed. Forgiveness of Sin through complicity in the worst of all possible crimes seems incongruous as a Religious Doctrine. Religions should not have to lurk in ethical shadows and moral vacuums. So Our Lady presented a Brown Scapular that could save without being rooted in blood and misery. A Devotion could be enough.

Well, right after creating this first Brown Scapular, Our Lady transported Herself nearly a thousand miles away, appearing on the same evening to the Pope in Rome, telling him “If you will not be the Pope who gives approval to the Carmelite Order, Heaven can soon arrange a new Pope who shall”. Of course, then, the Pope immediately did the right thing and granted official recognition to the Carmelites. That is how the Order was accepted into the Catholic Church. But, really, our understanding of the History of the Carmelites Order should go back to its true beginnings – back to the times of the Prophet Elijah.

Now it’s a fact of History that the Messianic Mission of Christ had failed. Of course we can impute this failure to widespread moral decadence, but isn’t that always very much the case? If we should wish to be charitable, then we might notice that perhaps the historical timing had been all wrong. By the time of Christ there had been strong Empires on every point of the compass surrounding Jerusalem and the world must have had very little want for a King of Kings. But looking back less than a thousand years before the time of Christ we can notice a period when Civilizations all about were in decline and no new Empires had yet risen up to take their place, and this is when perhaps a serious Messianic Mission could have stood half a chance. It was about at the time of King David. Indeed, without any competing Empires to intimidate them, first King David and then King Solomon seemed to flourish, relatively speaking, despite themselves. David danced drunk and naked in the streets, killing men to steal their wives. The People must have been somewhat leery of that. Solomon who came next was a playboy who bankrupts his Kingdom to build a Temple for a Religion that obviously had no personal interest for him. It was as though it were his very plan to make his People either resentful of Religion or of himself. This Davidic dynasty, soft with decadence and corruption, did not continue long past Solomon as first a Tax Revolt disintegrated into Civil War and the nation was finally dismembered by the rising Assyrian and Babylonian Empires. It was like a wasted Life. The brief window of Messianic Opportunity had already closed. But why had there not been a Messiah when a Messiah might have been successful? Good question. It was a matter of being ill-prepared – there had not been any preparation in Righteousness and Purity. Such was the opinion of Elijah the Prophet who seemed to have been aware of the Lost Opportunity and who made it his Mission to see that if there ever should be a Next Time, that the proper preparations in Righteousness should be taken. Well, as we can see now from hindsight, it was already too late for any Successful Messianic Mission, but perhaps History still might be able to learn some lessons from what had happened.

Even the Bible gives us some hint of Elijah’s Mission. We are told of a drought, and that day after day for seven days Elijah had asked that a servant climb Mount Carmel and look for any cloud. None was seen until on the seventh day when there was a small cloud. Looking back, we find that this meant that there would pass Seven Generations until the Next Opportunity. So Elijah went to work and put together an Organization, a Brotherhood, that could stand up to Seven Generations of Work, building a Social and Religious Purity from which it could be possible to raise up a plausible Messiah.

Well, most importantly, the Family of the Messiah would have to be especially monitored and protected. So Elijah, resorting to magic, passed down to the Brotherhood he established a very special ‘dead’ shrub kept in his old Cave at Mount Carmel. It seemed that every time a new Baby was born in the line of the Messiah, the ‘dead’ shrub would momentarily come to life and bloom forth in leaf and flower. The Monks of the Order would then scurry forth and find among the new babies one with a special birthmark. Of course, after the first Generation, the Monks knew exactly where to look for the new baby – they already knew who the mother would be. And so the Generations were counted off.

It was always girls. The dead shrub did not bloom for boys. Maybe this was at first surprising, as the Hebrews were a Patriarchal Society. But this was not a matter of inheriting power or passing down property. Perhaps when we consider Virtue, it is more likely to descend from Mother to Daughter.

Anne, who would be Mary’s mother, was the Sixth Generation baby, and so when she reached maturity, and became pregnant, the Brotherhood seemed to hold its breath and wait for the Seventh Sign and the Birth of the Seventh and Final Generation of Purity. But it didn’t happen. Anne had baby after baby and the dead bush remained dead. It must have been puzzling.

But the Angels intervened. This is where our History becomes a bit peculiar. No materialist will like what comes next. I refer to the published notebooks kept on the accounts given by Anne Catherine Emmerich, Catholicism’s foremost seer and visionary, who looked back on Biblical Times and saw what had really happened and wasn’t afraid to tell about it in detail. I decided to trust her insofar as her views were almost always at variance to the traditions she could have been supposed to uphold had she simply been a mouthpiece for Church Propaganda. Anyway, the way she tells it, there had been the Holy Thing from the Old Arc of the Covenant, now lost, but before the Arc had been lost, by being hid too well (they forgot where they hid it!), the Holy Thing had been removed for safe keeping. This Holy Thing goes all the way back to Adam, having been given to Abraham by an Angel and then passed down, from father to son, until it finally rested with Joseph in Egypt, but with Moses raiding Joseph’s Tomb and taking it along on his Exodus, placing it among the other Sacred Objects in the Arc. This Holy Thing was said to be the Spiritual Core of Purity from Adam himself, grabbed out of him by an Angel just a moment before his First Sin and subsequent decline from Spiritual Being to mere man. Spiritual Being on a par with the Angels one moment, not much more than a monkey the next.

The Angel, coming to address the problem with Anne, asked that this Holy Thing be passed into her by her husband, who just so happened to be a Priest who could be well informed on the situation. The Brotherhood did not keep every Priest current of the Messianic Developments, but they did initiate those into the Mystery who where in the right positions to be useful, and Anne’s Husband the Priest was positioned to be very useful here. One wonders about the details of how such holy things can be passed back and forth into people, but as it worked out, the Holy Thing from Adam became Mary inside of Anne. Whatever the biological details were, as far as the Holy Thing was involved, Mary comes to us as the Pure daughter of the still Spiritual Adam from Paradise – the Child Adam would have had if he had never fallen from Grace.

Well, of course, nine months later the dead shrub in the Cave of Elijah burst forth in its greatest floral profusion yet. It’s sad but it has stayed dead ever since. One can go to the Holy Land even today and still see it, there in Elijah’s Cave. It is most likely the oldest and best preserved dead shrub in existence.

And Mary was the Seventh Generation. She was the Cloud of Elijah’s Prophecy come to end the Drought. And the Messiah would not come unbeknownst or in secret. The Gospels do us a bit of a disservice here, presenting the view that Jesus had to convince everybody of His Messianic Pretensions. But a great many people knew exactly who Jesus was. And they all knew who Little Mary was. Concerning Her nothing was left to chance and the Messianic Plans could at times become quite elaborate. Which leads us to our little love story.

Little Mary was to be mother to the Messiah, and so She needed a husband. Although She Herself was of the House of David, it was thought that Her husband should also be of the House of David, though from a more remote branch of the Family. The Priests, in league with the Brotherhood, arranged to find an acceptable husband.

In selecting a husband for little Mary they would again rely upon a legacy of Elijah’s magic. All of the eligible bachelors of the House of David were assembled and were asked to hand in their walking sticks. The one who would be destined to marry Mary – his walking stick would have to come alive and bloom, much the same as that ‘dead’ brush in Elijah’s Old Cave. None of them did. The Priest in charge of the ceremony was confused and inquired if every bachelor on the list had indeed showed up. Well, an old bachelor, Joseph David, who did not wish to be married anyway thought that those who preferred to remain single should be exempted, and so he had stayed home. Well, he was immediately summoned and was compelled to come quickly – free or in chains, it would be his choice. No sooner then when he entered the hall did his beat up old walking stick bloom with these huge White Lilies, which then as now symbolize Purity and Virginity (this would be the first premonition of the Virgin Birth). We had a winner! It was said that Our Lady, then a 14 year old girl, asked for one of those Lilies, pressed it and saved it as a souvenir that She kept close by Herself for the remainder Her life.

Well, most of the bachelors were there only because they had been asked to be, and few had entertained any great expectations for themselves, suspecting of their own unworthiness. But there were a few who considered themselves in serious contention, and they to various degrees emotionally invested themselves into the process. One young man in particular thought that he truly had it all – noble breeding, wealth, capacity, virtue (and there was no pretence about it – he was an outstanding Young Man) – and he was heartbroken when Mary went to a reluctant old man who didn’t seem very eager to have Her anyway. This young man was so disconsolate that he ended up by selling off his things and becoming a Member of that Order of Essenes at Mount Carmel. Disgusted with Life, he would go into Religious Retirement and leave the world and all of his disappointments behind. He would have been happy enough to grow old and die without ever another word being spoken of him, but such would not be the case as we shall see.

It was correct that he had plenty of capacity and virtue. At the Monastery on the Mountain he proved himself to be a skilled and dedicated worker and then an inspiring leader, and after 30 some years found himself the Superior of that Order. Well, by this time Christ had been born, had grown up, had His Ministry and had finally been Murdered. The once solid Following of Jesus split into violent factions, making Mary Herself a possible target. Paul would kill Stephen, who had been a rival of Peter’s and Peter would reward Paul with a lucrative Christian Franchise. With such dealings afoot, Mary could not be safe. So our ‘young man’, now an old man, the Superior of the Monastery at Mount Carmel with many men under his command, discerned what his role must be in all of this and sent a covert delegation to quickly rescue Mary from the intrigues and conspiracies of Jerusalem and its environs. Our history does not go into much detail on this. Did they offer Her a polite invitation which She graciously accepted, or did they crash Her doors and ride away with Her folded over their saddlebags? We only know that when She arrived at Mount Carmel She was ready to appreciate Her stay.

But what a contre-temps it must have been for our young man, now an old man, after a lifetime with a broken heart he was finally to be face to face with that Girl, now a well advanced Lady, whom he had fallen so much in love with decades before… a Lifetime before. It is said that She recognized him instantly and asked him whether it did not seem just like ‘yesterday’ that they had met for the first time. And so it was that the Old Man, once a Young Man, entirely forgot all the years of disconsolation, loneliness, and heartbreak, and was completely enraptured in a moment of unalloyed happiness… what we would call a perfect smile.

Which brings us back to the question the Angel had asked me, why Our Lady chooses to dress as a Carmelite. I thought the answer was that She was showing Her appreciation for the Protection which that Order had given Her during Her lifetime, as well as in gratitude for the Care the Order had taken of Her Family for the Seven Generations since the time of the Prophet Elijah. That seemed like a reasonable enough answer, but it was too easy…it lacked elegance. I felt no validation from my Angels, and my dreams were still being stirred up with hints which would stop if I had gotten the Answer. So I kept The Riddle on my mind and continued to think it over. And then after about a month had gone by the answer came so instantly to me that I am not at all certain whether I thought of it, or my Angel finally just gave up and simply put the answer into my head – that Our Lady wears the Habit of the Carmelites because the Carmelites pre-date and transcend the Catholic Church. I could say it is a Jewish Order, but that too is limiting after we consider that Elijah himself was not exactly Jewish, wandering in from the hills to live with the Hebrews, he wasn’t a member of any one of their 12 tribes. Her wearing that Carmelite Habit is expressive of Her first loyalties which go beyond any particular Religion while recognizing the confluence of Religious Traditions. We are reminded that the Blessed Virgin is Jewish Girl and Catholic Girl both at once, as well as carrying forward whatever Religion it was that Old Elijah had brought with him out of those Hills.

Well, the Answer is one thing, but after the Answer, what was the Lesson that I was supposed to have learned? What was the Angel’s Guiding Purpose? How had I been changed by it all? Well, certainly, so much thoughtfulness can never go entirely to waste. But what I came to feel might have been something akin to what the first Crusading Carmelites had felt, that Religion was supposed to be more Universal, and more Ancient than just their own particular Religious Tradition. And then that any True Religion needs to have some little bit of a Love Story behind it. The World may have forgotten that young man turned old man, who had brought Our Lady to Mount Carmel, but She still wears the dress he gave Her. And that’s Religion too.