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In the summer of 2024, after the completion of that formation year at the Pontifical North American College, Rome, I headed to the Shrine of Lourdes for my summer assignment. I have been drawn there by my great love for the life of St Bernadette Soubirous, who is among my favorite Saints. There, I served English-speaking pilgrims for two weeks. Together with some other seminarians, we led the pilgrims in various activities such as Stations of the Cross, steps of St Bernadette, where we took them around places in Lourdes where Bernadette lived, candlelight rosary procession, directing them to the confessionals, and serving at Mass. This experience in Lourdes is one of the greatest graces not just as a seminarian, but in my life. One thing that struck me greatly is that, unlike the other places where the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is celebrated on February 11, at the Shrine in Lourdes, it is celebrated on July 16, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I learned that the reason is that the last of the 18 series of apparitions to Bernadette occurred on July 16, 1858.
The above scenario makes me think of the wonderful book, Is It in the Bible? written by my Nigerian compatriot, Fr Jude Mbukanma, OP. It re-echoes the usual questions asked by some non-Catholics and even some Catholics on hearing some doctrines. One of such teachings that provokes such a question is that of the Scapular. On that note, in honor of The Feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, which occurs on July 16, I wish to briefly articulate the meeting point between the Brown Scapular and the Bible. Yes, as one can argue that the scapular devotion is not mentioned in the Bible, given that it postdates the Bible, yet its meaning and spirituality are deeply rooted in the Bible. Venerable Fulton Sheen us helps to explain this clearly in his foreword to John Haffert’s book, Sign of Her Heart when he said that the Scapular is “a reversal of the penalties of original sin” because according to him, as Adam and Eve sinned against God, in addition to the fact that they are naked physically without garments of the body, they are naked spiritually without the garments of the soul. The emphasis here is on the garment. How then does this concern the Scapular with reference to the above? A new question begotten by this incumbent question is what forms the topic of this reflection? Is the brown scapular still relevant today?
The Scapular and the Sacred Scripture
Devotional Reflections on Prophet Elijah and Jesus Christ
Elijah
Two figures that immediately come to mind are Prophet Elijah, the ancient and Biblical ancestor of the Carmelites, and Our Lord Jesus Christ. What is common in both is that their lives are associated with sacred garments or cloaks. The pericope of 1 Kings from chapter 18:16-40 through chapter 19:1-21 shows us two important events. The first was at Mount Carmel, where he defeated the 450 prophets of the god Baal and the 400 prophets of the goddess Asherah. The second was where, after the Theophany – God’s revelation of Himself to him in a gentle breeze, He ordered him to anoint certain persons He chose, among whom was Elisha. Something symbolic that happened in his encounter with Elisha was that he went to Elisha and threw his garment over him. What Elisha did in response was even more symbolic. He reverenced Elijah, and afterwards took permission to visit his people and slaughtered some yoke of oxen, prepared a great meal for his family, ate it with them, and afterwards bade them farewell to begin his mission as Elijah’s servant.
Four points are deducible here and apply to the spiritual life of brown scapular devotees. The first is that Elijah’s garment, worn over his shoulders is a sign of God’s power. This is what the Scapular is to us as well, since it was given to St Simon Stock from the hands of Mary, who received it from God’s hands. Therefore, the scapular is from God. The second is that through this garment of God’s power, Elijah received the grace to defeat the 850 false prophets when he was the only surviving true prophet of God. Like him, the scapular is an instrument of defeat of the false tactics and temptations of the devils who combat us on this earthly pilgrimage towards Heaven, the eternal Carmel, the true mountain of God. The third is that Elijah eventually shared this garment with Elisha, who would later receive a multiplied portion of his power (see 2 Kings 2:9). Like him, we are called to share the message of the scapular with others because it contains an abundance of God’s riches and blessings from the hands of our Blessed Mother. The fourth is the most stunning, namely, that reception of this garment from Elijah propelled Elisha to service in the context of a meal. Therefore, like Elisha, everyone who has been enrolled and vested with the scapular has received a special call to service, in such a way that the scapular devotion points and leads us to proper Eucharistic celebration, where our Lord stripped of his garments gives us His body. So, in the encounter between Elijah and Elisha, we see a prefigurative connection and projection to Marian and Eucharistic devotions, yet we have greater privilege than they, for we have something greater than they. The secret contained here is that authentic scapular devotion leads us to authentic Eucharistic devotion. This is what St Louis Marie de Montfort would describe as true devotion. In his book, True Devotion to Mary, he teaches that the four characteristics of true devotion to Mary are TWIF – standing for Through Mary, With Mary, In Mary, and For Mary, so that our actions will be rendered perfectly to God Through Jesus, With Jesus, In Jesus, and For Jesus.
Jesus
Jesus, the Redeemer of man, who is the fulfilment of all the prophets, including Elijah, who stood near Him in His Transfiguration (see Matt 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36), also becomes the fulfilment of the same Elijah with reference to garments. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes by his mother Mary, after his birth (see Luke 2:7). The Angels also pointed out to the shepherds that seeing a baby in swaddling clothes is a sign to identify Him as Savior (see Luke 2:12). The same Jesus suffered all forms of pain during His Passion, of which the most shameful and painful is that of being stripped of his garment (see Matthew 27:28-30). Joseph of Arimathea uses a cloth to wrap Jesus’ body after he was taken down from the Cross and buried in the tomb (see Matt 27:59; Mark 15:46). Peter enters the tomb, and not finding Jesus, finds the wrapped cloth folded in an orderly manner (see John 20:6-7). We also have a long-standing tradition in the Stations of the Cross that a woman wiped his face with a garment, which is not recorded in the Bible.
The Significance
The point here is that Jesus’ Body was desecrated, which began with the stripping of his garment. Jesus, in this agonizing and pitiable state, made reparations to His Eternal Father for the sins committed by Adam and the entire human race, and thus reverses it by giving us salvation on the Cross. If scapular enrolment is a consecration, then it leads us to make reparations for the desecration of the Lord’s Body in the Eucharist. That same swaddling cloth is what we still use at every Mass on the altar. The scapular is a cloth. The Eucharist is celebrated on a sacred cloth.
Therefore, the true meaning of the Scapular must be read and understood in its connection with the Body of Christ. It is a piece of cloth, a garment given by our Lady to St Simon Stock to be part of their Carmelite habit, which the Church has extended to the entire faithful by making it in miniature form for all to benefit from the graces given by it. By way of relating to the Passion of Christ, we are aware that when His body was taken down from the Cross, Mary took him and wrapped him with clothes and offered him sorrowfully to be buried (see Matthew 27:59), just as she wrapped Him 33 years before then as a baby in Bethlehem (see Luke 2:7). By this, Mary revisits Bethlehem but now in Calvary sorrowfully, and now leads us to the altar. This teaches us that our relationship with Jesus involves clothing Him always with a garment. The Scapular is that garment, for just as He was clothed by it by His mother at birth to prevent Him from cold, and at death, to make reparation for the desecration, so also do we, by our Scapular devotion, receive that same garment from Mary to clothe Her Son by wearing it perseveringly. If Mary is Jesus’ Mother and we call her mother too, then Jesus is our brother, for His mother is our mother too. Therefore, let us not be afraid of clothing Jesus by receiving this garment of grace. The scapular is like the sackcloth worn by so many people in the Scripture. Sackcloth is a symbol of repentance. Scapular is an instrument of repentance. But what else is repentance other than a change of heart, to do penance again and again by repairing what has been torn and damaged?
This clothing shows why Mary emphasized chastity when giving the Scapular to St Simon Stock, for it is a visible sign of our consecration to her. Thus, we are called upon not to be afraid. All we need to do is to trust her maternal help in helping us overcome all sins, especially the sins of impurity, which spread like wildfire, which Our Lady lamented in Fatima, as the world is sending many souls to Hell more than any sin for all eternity. It is important to note that once a consecrated soul to Mary is always a consecrated to her, no matter the extent that soul may be in mortal sins. That is why her great devotee, St Alphonsus Liguori wrote in the Redemptorist hymn, “Look Down O Mother Mary,” translated into English by Edward Vaughan, CSsR, that ‘if thou O Mary would appease God for our sins, speak just but one word”. Therefore, she encourages everyone not to be afraid of wearing her Scapular, for it is not a garment of Punishment but of grace, for if a soul receives Communion, which is the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, then there is no need to fear the Scapular, which is a sacramental lesser to the Sacraments. It is only the devil that inflicts such a fear that the Scapular brings punishment because Mary is his greatest enemy. He suggests such fears because we forget what he remembers, namely, the prayers the priest said during our Scapular investiture, begging Mary to crush the head of the ancient serpent.
We need to think more of the promises and graces of the Scapular to overcome this devilish artifice to snatch us away from our beloved mother. So, Mary urges us to remain faithful by wearing our Scapular and not to remove it; to get the Scapular back and wear it if we have fallen and are afraid; and to be confident to wear it if we have never enrolled before. Let us be encouraged by the Scapular promise that whoever dies wearing it will never suffer eternal fire, as seen in countless Saints. Worthy of mention are Simon Stock, John of the Cross, and his brother, Francis of Yepes, Claude de la Colombiere, Louis Marie de Montfort, Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, John Bosco of Piedmont, Padre Pio, among others.
The Scapular and Rosary have a meeting point in graces of protection, Indulgences, and a happy death whose source is in Jesus Christ, and Him born, Him suffered, Him crucified, Him died, Him risen, Him ascended, and Him celebrated on the altar. The Scapular knows the way to the Eucharist because the Eucharist knows the way to Heaven.
Conclusion
If we make an honest assemblage of the foregoing, it follows that we can posit both an apophatic and cataphatic verbiage on the relevance of the brown scapular. Apophatically, it is not irrelevant – a way of double negation in refutation to the objection that it is no more relevant. Cataphatically, consequently, it is still relevant to our present day as it has been in the centuries before now. This position is true for four reasons:
First is because God is the source of this beautiful garment given to us through the hands of Mary. God, who is more beautiful than beauty and more perfect than perfection, knows how beautiful our souls are as His image. Therefore, if God is still relevant now as He was in the beginning and ever shall be world without end, then His gift of the scapular is still relevant in the same way.
Second is because, as we have seen, the Scripture gives us the meaning of Theophany, it follows that the scapular devotion follows the path of Scripture. It is the fruit of an apparition of Mary to St Simon Stock. Mary’s apparitions are theophanies since they announce nothing except the plan revealed by God. So, we can call the scapular the gift of Theophany through what I call “Mariophany.”
The third is because the Carmelite Order, through whom the scapular devotion came to us, and through whom it is preserved, is still present and active. Therefore, if the scapular is a participation in the Carmelite spirituality, our world needs it the way it needs the Order.
The fourth is because humans need reassurance of God’s plans for them. Therefore, scapular devotion is one of God’s plans.
There is a need to rekindle this devotion with utmost immediacy in the Church because its spirituality inspires virtues in discipline and reverence in divine worship.
Our Lady, the Beautiful Flower of Carmel, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!
