{"id":142897,"date":"2026-07-16T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/?p=142897"},"modified":"2026-07-02T14:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T18:17:08","slug":"our-lady-of-mt-carmel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/our-lady-of-mt-carmel\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lady of Mt Carmel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Candy,<\/span> My prayers for you are especially heartfelt today, the day on which the Church honors the religious Order of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. \u00a0The Order was founded in Palestine (that\u2019s where Mt Carmel is \u2013 the same mountain where the prophet Elijah took refuge back in the eighth century BC, and where hermits dedicated to contemplation have resided ever since) around the year 1154. \u00a0You know the story of how St Simon Stock, an English pilgrim who had joined the order during his stay in the Holy Land, returned to his homeland with the rest of the Carmelites after the Muslim conquests made the land of Israel hostile to Christians. \u00a0Then he began spreading the Order, revising their rule of life to include missionary and ministerial activity in addition to asceticism and prayer. (It was to him that, so it seems \u2013 the apparition has never been formally approved \u2013 Our Lady appeared holding the little brown scapular [two patches of cloth made into a kind of double necklace \u2013 a miniature version of the Carmelite habit] and promising that whoever died wearing it would be assured of salvation.) \u00a0Later, in the 1500s, St Theresa of Avila and St John of the Cross would bring some Carmelites back to their original ideal of solitude, extreme poverty, contemplation, and rigorous self-denial. Their reform led to the erection of the \u201cDiscalced Carmelites\u201d branch, while Simon Stock\u2019s branch was called the \u201cCalced Carmelites\u201d (the reformers went barefoot or with sandals only, thus the adjective \u201cdiscalced\u201d, \u201cunshod\u201d). The naming of St Therese of Lisieux as a Doctor of the Church in 1997 revived awareness of the spiritual force exerted by the prayers and sacrifices of the Carmelites, an Order still going strong today.<\/span> Perhaps you don\u2019t have a vocation to leave behind the delights and distractions of the world in order to dedicate yourself body and soul to love and serve the Lord, but that doesn\u2019t mean you can start skipping Sunday Mass and abandoning your prayer commitments \u2013 as it would seem by your last note that you have begun to do. \u00a0Beach volleyball is fun, but beach volleyball in heaven is a lot more fun. If you cut out your prayer life, as St Theresa of Avila herself put it, you will \u201cneed not a devil to carry you to hell, but will bring yourself there with your own hands.\u201d She, by the way, is also a Doctor of the Church.<\/span> Your lovingly honest uncle, Eddy<\/span> \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Candy, My prayers for you are especially heartfelt today, the day on which the Church honors the religious Order of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. \u00a0The Order was founded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOur Lady of Mt Carmel - Regnum Christi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/our-lady-of-mt-carmel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our Lady of Mt Carmel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Candy, My prayers for you are especially heartfelt today, the day on which the Church honors the religious Order of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. \u00a0The Order was founded […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/our-lady-of-mt-carmel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Regnum Christi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RegnumChristiEn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-16T09:00:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Uncle-Eddy-Header.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. 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