Faith Filled Friday: Our Feast of Mt. Carmel, 2025

The actual feast day for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel was Wednesday, July 16^th, but we celebrated it with a Mass, an Italian marching band, a procession, and then a parish BBQ on Sunday the 13^th. 

 

The feast day is a special to the Carmelite Order, commemorating the giving of the brown scapular in 1287 by Our Lady to St. Simon Stock, an English member of the Carmelite Order.  

Our pastor, Fr. Eugene, is also a Third Order Carmelite, and we had many from his chapter at the Mass.  We also had people attend from the Padre Pio Society and of course the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel organization which is located in Brooklyn, NY.  We also had an Italian band.

Fr. Eugene, who is Italian-American, included in his homily a funny little story.  I’ll put this in quotes, but it’s not a direct quote.  He said, “so deep is the Italian devotion to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, that his mother once asked where in Italy is Mt. Carmel located?”  The love of this feast is so pervasive among Italians that his mother assumed the mountain was in Italy.  But it’s not.  It’s in Isarel.

Now back in 2017, I posted that year’s procession with plenty of pictures.  If you want to see stills, go here.  

For this year, I’m going to post three videos from the procession.  First coming out of Church.

 

 

The grand exit of our beloved Lady and being put on the rolling cart.

Viva Maria!

 

And finally the procession.

 

Seminarians and altar servers in the front, banners and flags next, the rolling cart, the band, and finally the parishioners.  That’s Fr. Eugene in his vestments directing the rolling cart.  We processed about two blocks, up an avenue, and then back around.  As you can see, our parish is not just full of Italian-Americans but quite diverse. 

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us!

Sunday Meditation: Whoever Has Ears Ought To Hear

We all know that Jesus spoke in parables, and in this great parable, He explains why He does so.

 

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.  Such large crowds gathered around him

that he got into a boat and sat down,

and the whole crowd stood along the shore.

And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:

"A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,

and birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.

It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,

and when the sun rose it was scorched,

and it withered for lack of roots.

Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.  But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,

a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.

Whoever has ears ought to hear."

 

The disciples approached him and said,

"Why do you speak to them in parables?"

He said to them in reply,

"Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven

has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.

To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;

from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because

they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.  Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,

you shall indeed look but never see.

Gross is the heart of this people,

they will hardly hear with their ears,

they have closed their eyes,

lest they see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their hearts and be converted,

and I heal them.

 

"But blessed are your eyes, because they see,

and your ears, because they hear.

Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people

longed to see what you see but did not see it,

and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

 

"Hear then the parable of the sower.

The seed sown on the path is the one

who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it,

and the evil one comes and steals away

what was sown in his heart.

The seed sown on rocky ground

is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.

But he has no root and lasts only for a time.

When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.

The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word,

but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word

and it bears no fruit.

But the seed sown on rich soil

is the one who hears the word and understands it,

who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold."

Mt 13:1-23

 

I’m always taken with how important hearing is in this passage, hearing the parable but as one sits in the pew for every Mass one hears the Word and the Gospel.  Aren’t we all just a little hard of hearing.  Fr. Joseph Mary, the Capuchin Friar has a wonderful explanation of this passage.

 

Meditation: Acknowledging Jesus.

“But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Last night the parish at the vigil Mass celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.  Our pastor, Fr. Eugene, is a Lay Carmelite, and he had the entire chapter from Staten Island at the Mass.  After the Mass we took the statue of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and processed her through the streets around the parish.  We had to cut it short because of a thunderstorm, which came just as we tucked the statue under cover.  Here is a picture of the Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

And here just as we got her to cover before the storm.

I wasn’t able to take as many pictures this year since I was carrying the Italian flag, but if you want to read and see many more pictures, check out my post from 2017.  We had the same Italian band and similar turnout as then.

Faith Filled Friday: The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

This was the second year our parish—St. Rita’s Church in Staten Island, NY—celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  I took pictures last year and thought I posted them on the blog, but apparently not.  I couldn’t find any post.  I took pictures again this year and so I’ll post now.

OurLady of Mount Carmel is the title of our Blessed Mother as patroness of the Carmelite Order.  Mount Carmel is the group of mountains in northern Israel where the Carmelite hermits gathered and founded the order shortly after the Crusades had retaken the Holy Land.  The Carmelite Order has had a long and glorious tradition all the way to today.  July 16^th is the feast day, established by the appearance of the Holy Virgin to Carmelite friar, St. Simon Stock on that day in 1251.  And so Carmelites, lay and religious, have been celebrating this feast for centuries.  This year July 16^th fell on a Sunday, and so we celebrated right after the 12:30 PM mass.

Now the celebration of OLMC is basically an Italian feast event, and like many summer time Italian feasts, there is a statue of the saint which is carried out of the church, placed on a large rolling cart or dolly, and paraded through the neighborhood with a marching band. 

So here is the statue being carried out of the church.

We had an explosion of confetti once it was out and my camera caught it.

The professionals then placed it on top of the dolly and locked it in.

The statue is beautifully dressed.  Here are some close ups.

There are lots of banners and flags in the procession.

Since this is their feast day, here’s one of the Lay Carmelites.

We actually had two Italian marching bands, one in the front and one in the back.  Here’s the one in the front.

And the procession went through the neighborhood.  Last year we handed out prayer cards and scapulars as we walked.  For some reason we didn’t do it this year.

It was a very hot and humid day.  We only marched a few blocks and around, maybe amounting to a half mile.  Finally we concluded with pizza and cookies and fresh soft drinks at the church auditorium.

The dress’s train are actually ribbons pinned with money that parishioners donated. 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us.