I just thought it proper to elucidate upon the fact that St. Elias as Leader and Father of the Carmelites does indeed have special relevance for us who have been invested with the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. As we are thereby associated with the Carmelite Order, we too may call upon and venerate as our Father this glorious Prophet, and we all shall certainly be edified by the example of his great virtues and advance in Christian perfection if we earnestly employ ourselves in imitating such an illustrious exemplar.
May the Lord God and His glorious Mother deign to send us Priests like unto St. Elias!The connection between the holy Scapular and St. Elias was illustrated by something I posted elsewhere recently. I think it appropriate to re-post it here.
Proper Preface of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount CarmelVere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutáre, nos tibi semper, et ubíque grátias ágere: Dómine sancte, Pater omnípotens, ætérne Deus: Qui per nubem levem, de mari ascendéntem, immaculátam Vírginem Maríam beáto Elíæ Prophétæ mirabíliter præsignásti: eíque cultum a fíliis prophetárum præstári voluísti. Quos autem beáta Virgo hodiérna die per sacrum Scapuláre, in fílios dilectiónis assúmpsit, eodémque indútos, ac pie moriéntes, ad montem sanctum tuum quantócius perdúcere dignéris. Et ídeo cuм Angelis et Archángelis, cuм Thronis et Dominatiónibus, cuмque omni milítia cæléstis exércitus, hymnum glóriæ tuæ cánimus, sine fine dicéntes: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, &c.
Truly it is worthy and just, becoming and healthful, that we should ever and everywhere make thanksgiving unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: Who by a light cloud, ascending from the sea, didst wonderfully foreshadow the spotless Virgin Mary unto the blessed Prophet Elias, and didst will that the sons of the prophets should pay homage unto her; whom, moreover, the blessed Virgin on this day hath taken up as children of predilection by the sacred Scapular, and those dying, devoutly clothed in the same, Thou dost deign to lead more speedily unto Thy holy Mountain; and therefore together with the Angels and Archangels, with the Thrones and Dominions, and together with all the warriors of the celestial hosts, do we sing the hymn of Thy glory, endlessly proclaiming: Holy, Holy, Holy, &c.
This Preface, taken from the Missal of the Friars of the Order of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel according to the Ancient Custom of the Church of Jerusalem [
The Missal According to the Carmelite Rite in Latin and English for Every Day in the Year, published at Rome by the Vatican Polyglot Press in 1953, having an
Imprimi potest given by Rev. Fr. Kilian E. Lynch, Prior General of the Carmelite Order, at Rome, 12 June 1953], alludes to the celebrated sign of the coming of Our Blessed Lady, narrated in the Epistle for the Mass of the Solemn Commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel proper to this same Missal. The Lord God had stricken Israel with a drought in punishment for its apostasy, and the impious Achab falsely blames the Prophet Elias for the consequent famine, at which he commands Achab to gather atop Mount Carmel the prophets of the idol Baal, whom by a great sign of the heavenly fire he shows to be false and has them slain. Afterwards, “Elias went up into the top of Carmel, and flat on the earth put his face between his knees, and he said to his servant: Go up, and look toward the sea. Who when he was gone up, and had looked, he said: There is nothing. And again he said to him: Return seven times. And in the seventh time, behold, a little cloud as it were a man’s foot, came up from the sea. Who said: Go up and say to Achab: Yoke thy chariot and go down, lest the rain prevent thee. And when he turned himself hither and thither, behold, the heavens were darkened, and clouds and wind, and there fell a great rain” (III Kings ch. xviii., 42-45).
The little cloud beheld by the servant of the blessed Prophet, whom the Carmelites venerate as their Father Founder, has been regarded by the Saints and pious authors as an echo of the grand prophecy of the Redemption that the Lord deigned to give unto Adam and Eve when he cursed the serpent: “I will put enmities between thee and the Woman, and thy seed and the Seed of her: she shall bruise thy head in pieces, and thou shalt lie in wait of her heel” (Gen. ch. iii., 15). This little cloud is a happy portent of that victory which the Blessed Lady Mary ever Virgin wrought at the Incarnation and consummated on Mount Calvary, when Our Savior gave her to us as our new Mother, greater than Eve: “Woman, behold thy son” (S. John xix. 26). This truth is beautifully expressed in a Responsory found in the Bridgettine Breviary:
℟. Mother Eve, consenting to the enemy, removed herself together with her husband from glory, exchanging life for death; whose happy daughter, obeying God, hath overthrown the enemy, hath restored glory, hath driven away death, * And hath brought back life.
℣. Praise and glory be unto God, Who to a frail mother gave such a daughter, who hath also been made the Mother of her Creator, * And hath brought back life.
This glorious victory is praised in the Introit in the same Mass: “How beautiful are thy steps, O daughter of the Prince!” (Cant. ch. vii., 1), that is to say, how glorious are those sacred steps by which thou, O Blessed Mother, didst bruise and break into pieces the head of the ancient serpent, not only once but many times whensoever by thy patronage and tutelage the just overcome temptations, sinners are liberated from the servitude of Belial, and faithful Christians attain to the glory of Paradise. These wonders the Blessed Virgin accomplishes by means of the holy Scapular, which the Prefaces mentions as a token of Our Lady’s predilection and the speedy means by which souls arrive to Heaven, symbolized by the holy Mountain of God. The imagery of the holy Mountain well becomes today’s Feast, as this Mountain can be taken to mean Mount Carmel, as the Offertory verse of the same Mass says: “I brought you into the land of Carmel, that you might eat the fruit thereof, and the best things thereof” (Jer. ch. ii., 7).
Let us consecrate ourselves anew to this glorious Lady, the Virgin Mother of God, whom the Lord has constituted as the Mediatress of all graces and the rightful Sovereign of the heavens and the earth. It is only proper that we adore Our Lord for the excellencies and glories wherewith He has endowed Our Blessed Mother, and give our entire beings unto Him through her by whom He gave Himself unto us. As the little cloud announced the great torrents that vivified the parched land of Israel, so let us allow the Holy Scapular to be an authentic token of the torrents of graces that the Blessed Virgin bestows upon her faithful servants. And thus shall we be lead unto that celestial Carmel wherein we shall behold the Our Lord and His Virgin Mother and praise them everlastingly.
Topic: St. Elias the Prophet! (Read 4018 times)