Marie du jour, 16 May: St. Edith Stein

We give thanks that our dear Lady has clothed us with the “garment of salvation.” […] In the year 1251 [according to tradition] the Blessed Virgin appeared to the general of the Order, Simon Stock, an Englishman, and gave him the scapular.

Saint Edith Stein

On the History and Spirit of Carmel (1936-1937)

This dramatic print illustrates the traditional Carmelite vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing to St. Simon Stock, presenting him with the brown scapular as a sign of her maternal protection over the Carmelite Order. The composition is rich with movement and symbolism: Mary appears in glory, surrounded by angels; below, St. Simon kneels in awe to receive her gift; and in the lower left foreground, souls are delivered from purgatory—visually reinforcing the scapular promise. The Latin inscription at the bottom of the engraving says: In the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, near the church of the same Order in Venice. Sister Fideles drew and saw [this].

Stein, E. 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, translated from the German by Stein, W, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Virgin Appears to Saint Simon Stock (1749), etching by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo after Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Based on a vision or drawing by Sister Fideles, a Discalced Carmelite nun. Image credit: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Public domain.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Do I wear the brown scapular—and if so, how has it shaped my life of prayer, trust, or devotion to Mary?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BlessedVirginMary #BrownScapular #inspiration #StEdithStein #StSimonStock

Quote of the day, 16 May: Hermann Cohen

There may still be some who, from deference to the naturally staid, impassive character of the English, would counsel Catholics to maintain a certain reserve in their devotion to Mary, as though, indeed, there were any other than Mary who was to crush the head of error; as though there could be danger or excess where God has so wondrously surpassed Himself: can the love of Catholics for Mary ever rise to such a height, or can they honour her with glory so sublime, as that to which God Himself has chosen to exalt her?

As if this filial homage could be out of place in England, the birth-place of the devotion of the Holy Scapular, the favoured spot to which the Blessed Virgin came, bringing from heaven that pledge of salvation, to bestow it upon a Religious, not of Italy or of Spain, but on an English Saint, born and bred in England, English in his labors, in his mission, and in his election as General of the Carmelite Order.

This preference for England as the scene of that revelation, and the choice of an Englishman, St. Simon Stock, as the receiver of the promise attached to the Scapular is, to my mind, a pledge of the future conversion of that nation.

Servant of God Augustine of the Blessed Sacrament
Hermann Cohen

Lecture at Malines (3 September 1864)

Tierney, T  2017,  A Life of Hermann Cohen: From Franz Liszt to John of the Cross,  Balboa Press,  Bloomington, IN

Featured image: This close-up photo shows the monumental reliquary of St. Simon Stock in the chapel of the Carmelite priory in Aylesford, England. Image credit: British Province of Carmelites / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Do I believe there can be “danger or excess” in loving Our Lady as God exalts her?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BlessedVirgin #BrownScapular #CarmeliteOrder #Catholic #Catholics #conversion #England #HermannCohen #Mary #PriorGeneral #scapular #StSimonStock

16 May: Saint Simon Stock

May 16
SAINT SIMON STOCK
Religious

Optional Memorial

In the houses in the United Kingdom and Ireland: Memorial

Simon, an Englishman, died at Bordeaux in the mid-thirteenth century. He has been venerated in the Carmelite Order for his personal holiness and his devotion to Our Lady. A liturgical celebration in his honor was observed locally in the fifteenth century, and later extended to the whole Order.

From the Common of Holy Men (Religious)

OFFICE OF READINGS

The Second Reading

From the Flaming Arrow by Nicholas of France, Prior General
(Chapter 6)

I will lead her into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart

Was it not our Lord and Savior Who led us into the desert, as a mark of His favor, so that there He might speak to our hearts with special intimacy? It is not in public, not in the market place, not amid noise and bustle that He shows Himself to His friends for their consolation and reveals His secret mysteries to them, but behind closed doors.

To the solitude of the mountain did Abraham, unswerving in faith and discerning the issue from afar in hope, ascend at the Lord’s command, ready for obedience’s sake to sacrifice Isaac his son; under which mystery the passion of Christ—the true Isaac—lies hidden. To the solitude of the mountain was it too that Abraham’s nephew, Lot, was told to flee for his life in haste from Sodom.

In the solitude of Mount Sinai was the Law given to Moses, and there was he so clothed with light that when he came down from the mountain no one could look upon the brightness of his face.

In the solitude of Mary’s chamber, as she conversed with Gabriel, was the Word of the Father most high in very truth made flesh.

In the solitude of Mount Tabor it undoubtedly was, when it was His will to be transfigured, that God made man revealed His glory to His chosen intimates of the Old and New Testaments. To a mountain solitude did our Savior ascend alone in order to pray. In the solitude of the desert did He fast forty days and forty nights together, and there did He will to be tempted by the devil, so as to show us the most fitting place for prayer, penance, and victory over temptation.

Top the solitude of mountain or desert it was, then, that our Savior retired when He would pray; though we read that He came down from the mountain when He would preach to the people or manifest His works. He who planted our fathers in the solitude of the mountain thus gave Himself to them and their successors as a model, and desired them to write down His deeds, which are never empty of mystical meaning, as an example.

It was this rule of our Savior, as rule of utmost holiness, that some of our predecessors followed of old. They tarried long in the solitude of the desert conscious of their own imperfection. Sometimes however—though rarely—they came down from their desert, anxious, so as not to fail in what they regarded as their duty, to be of service to their neighbors, and sowed broadcast of the grain, threshed out in preaching, that they had so sweetly reaped in solitude with the sickle of contemplation.

Responsory

R/. O that I had wings like a dove, to fly away and be at rest; * so I would escape far away, and take refuge in the desert (alleluia).
V/. The world and its cravings pass away, but those who do God’s will stand firm for ever. * So I would escape far away, and take refuge in the desert (alleluia).

MORNING PRAYER

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. The Lord is all that I have; the Lord is good to the soul that seeks Him (alleluia).

Prayer

Father,
You called St. Simon Stock to serve you
in the brotherhood of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
Through his prayers
help us like him to live in your presence
and to work for man’s salvation.

Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

EVENING PRAYER

Canticle of Mary

Ant. Where brethren are united in praising God, there the Lord will bestow His blessing (alleluia).

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

#Carmelite #LiturgyOfTheHours #optionalMemorial #PriorGeneral #religious #scapular #StSimonStock

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