The Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

In AD 1241 (as per account of John Haffert) when Baron de Grey of England was returning from the Crusades in Palestine, he brought with him a group of religious from the holy mountain of Carmel. Upon their arrival in England, they established the first foundation of the Brothers of Mary, which St. Simon Stock joined. St. Simon was later elected Superior General of the Carmelite order. Fr. Duetao writes that the brown scapular was given to St. Simon in a moment of great stress for the Carmelite order. St. Simon, being a holy, prayerful man, begged the Blessed Mother for special protection for the order. On July 16, 1251, as he was praying "Flos Carmeli" (Flower of Mount Carmel), the prayer he composed for the Blessed Mother, the glorious Virgin Mary appeared to him, accompanied by a multitude of angels. Holding the brown scapular in her hands, Our Lady of Mount Carmel handed it to St. Simon Stock and said:

Wear the brown scapular devoutly and perseveringly. It is my garment. To be clothed in it means you are continuously thinking of me and I in turn am always thinking of you. Whoever dies wearing it shall not suffer eternal fire.
Since then the brown scapular has become a widespread devotion and several popes have richly endowed it with indulgences.
By wearing the brown scapular, we profess that we want Mary as our Mother in a special way. The brown scapular is also a shield from the devils as "they are tormented by it" according to Venerable Juan Yepes, the brother of St. John of the Cross. The devils told Juan that there are three things that torment them: the name of Jesus, the name of Mary, and the brown scapular. The brown scapular identifies us in a special way with Mary. It puts us at the foot of Mount Carmel which we have to "ascend" in our struggle for holiness. How do we "ascend"?
By doing little things with love; praying the Rosary daily and paying attention to the mysteries; making holy each act of the day; accepting all from God with love. There's also a privilege attached to the brown scapular, the "Sabbatine or Saturday privilege". St. John of the Cross praised God that he should die on a Saturday, the day of the special brown scapular privilege. Literally, this privilege means that we shall be "saints" by the time we die.

On the last apparition of Our Lady in Fatima on October 13, 1917, after the miracle of the dancing sun, the Blessed Mother appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel holding out the brown scapular in the sky because, according to Sister Lucia, one of the visionaries of Fatima, "She wants everyone to wear it. It's a sign of consecration to her Immaculate Heart."
She also said that "the Rosary and the brown scapular are inseparable. In the Rosary we speak to our Lady and the brown scapular makes Our Lady real to us". In conclusion, we highlight the touching words of the late beloved Pope John Paul II who in his earlier years was a member of the Tertiary Order of Carmel:

Through the brown scapular, those devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel express their desire - to pattern their existence on the example of Mary… to accept God's Word with a purified heart, and to devote themselves to the zealous service of others.

The 15 Promises of Our Lady for Praying The Rosary

The 15 Promises of Our Lady for Praying the Rosary

Tradition holds that when Mary gave the Rosary to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche that she made 15 promises to those who devoutly pray the Rosary. These promises are:

1.Whosoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.

2.I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.

3.The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin and defeat heresies.

4.It will cause good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire for Eternal Things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5.The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.

6.Whosoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of Eternal Life.

7.Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.

8.Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the Light of God and the plenitude of His Graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the Merits of the Saints in Paradise.

9.I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.

10.The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of Glory
in Heaven.

11.You shall obtain all you ask of me by recitation of the Rosary.

12.All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

13.I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire Celestial Court during their life and at the hour of death.

14.All who recite the Rosary are my Sons, and brothers of my Only Son Jesus Christ.

15.Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.


We have a wide selection of rosaries throughout this site and if you can't find what your looking for we do have a search box or look to the menu on the right side.

Our Lady Of Fatima

Of all the apparitions of the Blessed Mother during the last hundred years, the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima stand out as the most wide-ranging in scope and in dramatic impact on mankind.

Way back 1917, Our Lady voiced out her motherly concerns about the world to three shepherd children in the simple village of Fatima in Portugal. She prophesied the errors Russia would spread through Communism and spelled out clearly what God wanted for mankind to be rid of this menacing threat. She said that God had entrusted the peace of the world to her and consequently, she laid down what each of us must do to work out this peace. What is singularly striking and amazing about the messages of Our Lady of Fatima is that if you study everything closely read through our simplified chronology of events, you will discover that events from 1917 to the present give a glimpse of how God collaborates with man for man to obtain peace in this world.

Here's a specific example. For the conversion of Russia, God wanted a consecration of the world, especially Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be done by the Pope in union with the Bishops of the world (a "collegial" consecration). Several Popes consecrated the world to Our Lady but it was only in 1984, with the prayers and sacrifices of millions of Fatima devotees over the years, that the proper collegial consecration which God wanted was finally done, in accordance with the request of Our Lady of Fatima.

When Lucia asked Our Lord why He would not convert Russia without the Holy Father making the desired consecration, He replied, "Because I want My whole Church to acknowledge that consecration as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary... The result of all the prayers and sacrifices of Fatima devotees and the collegial consecration was the dramatic, peaceful collapse of the Soviet Communist empire from within its own borders without a single shot fired.

The Chronology of events below attempt to capsulize and simplify the messages of Our Lady of Fatima. Compressing the main points in a few pages has been a little difficult considering their gravity and the very long time frame the events encompass. The Third Secret of Our Lady of Fatima may baffle and mystify.

But with all the images these pages evoke, we hope that what will predominate with you is that striking scene in the Third Secret of Our Lady of Fatima: the Angel with a flaming sword, flashing his sword towards us and crying out for penance, his sword giving out flames that look as though they would set the world on fire but on the other hand, Our Lady vanquishing the flames with the splendor that radiated from her.

We thank Our Lady of Fatima for the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, considered as one of the greatest dramas of our age, and the vision of hope found in the Third Secret. But as our glance turns to other parts of the world, we sigh, alas!, that the turmoil is not yet over.

In these times of global uncertainty and turbulence, like little children let us hasten to Our Lady of Fatima, our Mother in Heaven.

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

As I sat before the Lord early in the morning, I brought to him something in myself, a flaw, something that I perceived emanates from a root of fear. As I was speaking to him about it, the Scripture came into my mind, “perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)
Meditating on the Word of God is crucial in creating a foundation for our lives, for our attitudes, for our responses. The surface meaning of a passage may not be sufficiently refined, in our understanding, to produce the desired end in us. The Bible contains several words which are translated in English as “meditate.” One of them, “sachat,” means to squeeze out as grapes. And that’s what I found myself doing this morning, squeezing out that verse, meditating on it prayerfully until the dross was cleared up and the new wine flowed.

As I thought on the passage awhile, confused at first, I wondered, “then why do I still have a bit of fear, if his love for me is perfect?”
But suddenly I realized what it’s NOT saying. The common interpretation of this verse has been that the perfect love of God casts fear out of us. But that’s not what it’s saying, or at least, there is another way to look at it. It’s not referring to God’s love for us because if it were, all fear would be gone as soon as a person has been the recipient of his love which is perfect. No. It’s talking about OUR love - for HIM!
When we have walked with the Lord for awhile, as we grow in our experience of him, as we come to see his faithfulness and mature in the awareness of his active participation in our lives, that will bring about, if we let it, such a growth of trust in him, such a developing love for him, that it truly does cast out fear. So it’s not that God’s perfect love casts out fear, but that as our love for HIM becomes perfected, it casts out fear. I nearly jumped from my chair! I SAW it! Yes! Yes! I can attest to it, it has happened to me!

In more than thirty years of walking with the Lord, we’ve been through some deep valleys together, through thorns and briars and through the fire. In all of these situations, the Lord has manifested himself to me and delivered me from all the troubles. Truly, truly can I say, “all things work together for the good to those who love God…” (but I’ll save that one for another time.) The point is that as we see the Lord bring us through and deliver us, and help and provide for us, sometimes miraculously, we grow slowly and at times imperceptibly in a love for Him which brings about a trust base that after awhile becomes a solid living element in our natures. Indeed he has told us that he gives us peace, but then defines that as a peace that the world is incapable of giving. As we experience him, we grow in the understanding of the nature of that kind of peace. Who, having experienced it, could ever explain it?
So these things work together: learning trust through experiencing his constant provision and deliverance, and receiving his peace, which is of an entirely different nature than any other ever experienced. Thus we grow from experience to experience, and in all of our stories we can see — if we’re trained to recognize them — the fingerprints of the Lord all over them, and we can’t help but grow in a living and abiding love for him.

I saw this morning that even in the light of all he has done, there is still a morsel of fear that is hanging on for dear life. But it’s chipped, and worn, and bedraggled, and tired, and just waiting to flee. And it will. Because it has no possibility of survival in the presence of a love of God that is developing toward that “perfect love,” which will finally cast away all fear! ~
by P. Maillet