The Brown Scapular

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The Brown Scapular is a sacramental, one of the many items set apart or blessed by the Church to inspire devotion and increase holiness. The Carmelite Order, to which the Scapular belongs, originated on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land and the Scapular is itself a reflection in miniature of the habit which the friars wear as a sign of their vocation and devotion. The Scapular consists of two small pieces of brown wool connected by two strings and worn over the shoulders. The Scapular must be brown, rectangular in shape and made of 100 percent wool (ideally it is lambs wool, symbolic of Jesus, the Lamb of God). The strings connecting the pieces of wool may be of any color or material and pictures on the scapulars are optional. The Scapular must, however, be worn over the shoulders one woolen part in front and one in back. One connecting string is worn over the right shoulder, the other over the left shoulder. The Scapular devotion was promoted directly by Our Lady on July 16, 1251, when Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Simon Stock, general of the Carmelite Order, in response to his heartfelt prayers for assistance. Holding the Scapular before him, Our Lady spoke, saying: Take this Scapular. Whosoever dies wearing it shall not suffer eternal fire. It shall be a sign of salvation, a protection in danger and a pledge of peace. What an amazing promise! Our Lady is telling us that we will not go to hell if we die wearing Her Brown Scapular Such is the extraordinary promise Our Lady makes to those who wear Her Brown Scapular. And this wonderful promise makes the Scapular the most powerful sacramental Heavens mercy has given us. Who could doubt Our Ladys promise, or be so foolish as not to wear, with profoundest gratitude and reverence, this abbreviated form of the Carmelite Mantle? This garment of grace two simple pieces of brown wool worn over the shoulders is a tangible sign of the Blessed Mothers love and protection for Her devotees. We should kiss the Scapular devoutly when rising in the morning, and every time we put on a new Scapular to replace one that is worn or damaged. For this gesture of reverence, we receive an indulgence of 500 days, and we are also reminded to ask Our Lady: Preserve me this day

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from sin and the occasions of sin. Wearing Marys Scapular is a way to consecrate ourselves to Her service. Consecration sets apart a person or thing for a sacred purpose. Every Catholic should be consecrated to Mary. Our Lady of Fatima, on October 13th, 1917, held the Brown Scapular in Her hand, making the three child seers Lucy, Jacinta and Francisco understand that She wants all of us to wear the Scapular. Of course, this does not mean that the Brown Scapular should be worn as some sort of good luck charm. The two pieces of cloth of themselves have no power to protect us. The Scapulars power is due to the fact that Our Lady promises to protect those who wear this sign of belonging to Our Ladys Confraternity. Our Lady gave us this Brown Scapular because She loves us and wants to save us for this little (but important) act of devotion towards Her. The miracles and conversions due to this Scapular show in a tangible way Our Ladys power and protection for those who wear the Scapular. But there is one error about the Scapular we must avoid. And it is this: We must wear the Brown Scapular with confidence but not with presumption. We must recall the Cur of Ars warning to a person who wore the Scapular and continued to sin mortally without even trying to amend his life. St. John Vianney said: The Blessed Virgin Mary did not give you that Scapular so that you could continue to crucify Her Son Jesus over and over again. Unfortunately, some souls have not heeded such warnings. There are documented cases of people who took their Brown Scapular off just before they died because it felt like it was burning them. Others have taken it off at the beach and died by drowning. Wear it always with confidence in Our Lady, but not presumption. Pope Pius XI reminds us to strive to always be more worthy of Our Ladys love and protection. He said, those who wish to have the Blessed Mother as a helper at the hour of death, must in life merit such a signal favor by abstaining from sin and laboring in Her honor. This great promise of protection from eternal damnation was further magnified some eighty years later when the Queen of Heaven appeared to Jean Drze (later Pope John XXII) and told him that under certain conditions
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those who have been invested with this Holy Habit will be delivered from Purgatory the first Saturday after their deaths. This great second promise attached to the Scapular is called the Sabbatine (Saturday) Privilege and is based on a decree issued by John XXII in 1322 (and re-confirmed 400 years later by Pope Paul V). In our own times, Pope Benedict XV, as a sign of his approval, granted a 500-day indulgence each time the Scapular is kissed. So what does it take to gain this magnificent promise of the Sabbatine Privilege of the Brown Scapular? There are three conditions: 1) You must be enrolled once in the Scapular Confraternity and wear the Scapular at all times. 2) You must be pure, observing the 6th and 9th Commandments according to your state in life. 3) You must pray each day the Little Office in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary (an authorized priest may change that to five decades of the Rosary daily). At its essence, the Scapular is a prayer in which Our Lady draws us nearer to the Sacred Heart of Her Divine Son. For over seven hundred years, the promise of the Scapular has been proven theologically sound and confirmed by miracles. Saint Claude de la Colombiere said, No devotion has been confirmed by more numerous authentic miracles than the Brown Scapular.

Enrollment in the Brown Scapular

To obtain the fullest possible benefits from the Brown Scapular devotion, one must be validly invested (sometimes called enrolled) in the Brown Scapular by a priest who possesses the faculties (usually a Carmelite, Dominican or Franciscan; but today, any Catholic priest in good standing has these faculties), using a scapular blessed by the same or any other priest. After proper enrollment in the Scapular, a person need not have subsequent scapulars blessed. Once enrolled you are enrolled until death. A Scapular Ritual for Priests, with the prayers of enrollment, is found below: Priest: Show us, O Lord, Thy mercy.
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Respondent: And grant us Thy salvation. Priest: O Lord, hear my prayer. Respondent: And let my cry come unto Thee. Priest: The Lord be with you. Respondent: And with your spirit. Priest: Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, Savior of mankind, by Thy right hand sanctify this (these) Scapular(s) which Thy servant(s) will devoutly wear for love of Thee and of Thy Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, so that through Her intercession (he) (she) (they) may be protected from the wickedness of evil spirits, and persevere in Your grace until death. You Who live and reign forever and ever. Amen. The priest then sprinkles the Scapulars with Holy Water. Then he places the Scapular over the shoulders of each person being enrolled a woolen piece of the Scapular in the front, the other piece in the back, and says the following for each person: Receive this blessed Scapular, and ask the Most Holy Virgin that by Her merits it may be worn with no stain of sin, protect you from all harm and bring you to everlasting life. Amen. After placing each Brown Scapular on each person being enrolled, the priest continues with the prayers for all: By the power granted to me, I admit you to a share in all the spiritual works performed with the merciful help of Jesus Christ, by the religious of Mount Carmel, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. May Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, bless you whom He has been pleased to receive into the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. We beg Her to crush the head of the ancient serpent at the hour of your death and to obtain for you the palm and the crown of your everlasting inheritance. We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen. The priest sprinkles those enrolled in the Scapular with Holy Water. If there is more than one person being enrolled then the priest uses the plural form of the enrollment formula. If the priest is simply blessing the Scapulars
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then he stops his prayer at the end of the prayer Our Lord Jesus Christ, Savior of mankind... Amen.

Testimony of the Brown Scapular

Miracle of Grace: A priest relates how one day in a town near Chicago he was called to the bedside of a man who had been away from the Sacraments for many years. The man did not want to see me: he would not talk. Then I asked him to look at the little Scapular I was holding. Will you wear this if I put it on you? I ask nothing more. He agreed to wear it, and within the hour he wanted to go to Confession and make his peace with God. This did not surprise me, because for over 700 years Our Lady has been working in this way through Her Scapular. Our Lady Protects a Missionary: One day in 1944, a Carmelite missionary in the Holy Land was called to an internment camp in order to give the Last Rites. The Arab bus driver made the priest get off the bus four miles from the camp because the road was dangerously muddy. After two miles, the missionary found his feet sinking deeper and deeper into the mire. Trying to get solid footing, he slipped into a muddy pool. Sinking to his death in this desolate place, he thought of Our Lady and Her Scapular. He kissed his great Scapular for he was wearing the full habit and looked toward the holy mountain of Carmel, the birthplace of this devotion to Gods Mother. He cried out, Holy Mother of Carmel! Help me! Save me! A moment later, he found himself on solid ground. Later he said, I know I was saved by the Blessed Virgin through Her Brown Scapular. My shoes were lost in the mud, and I was covered with it, but I walked the remaining two miles praising Mary. Saved from the Sea: In the late summer of the year 1845, the English ship, King of the Ocean found itself in the middle of a wild hurricane. As wind and sea mercilessly lashed the ship, a Protestant minister, together with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for mercy and forgiveness, as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. On seeing the urgency of the situation, the youth opened his shirt, took off his Scapular, and, making the Sign of the Cross with it over the raging waves, tossed it into the ocean. At that very moment, the wind calmed. Only one more wave washed the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which came to rest at the boys feet. All the while the minister (a Mr. Fisher) had been carefully observing McAuliffes actions and the miraculous effect of those actions. Upon questioning the young man, they were told about the Holy Virgin and Her Scapular. Mr. Fisher and his family were so impressed that they were determined to enter
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the Catholic Church as soon as possible (which they did after landing in Australia), and thereby enjoy the same protection of Our Ladys Scapular. A Home Saved from Fire: In May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a 2-family home, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the front door of the house and one on the back door. Sparks flew over it and around it, but the house remained unharmed. Within 5 hours, 22 homes attached to each other had been reduced to ashes. The one structure which stood undamaged in the middle of the row of houses was that which had the Scapular attached to its doors. The hundreds of people who came to see the place Our Lady had saved are eyewitnesses to the power of the Scapular and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A Priests Life Saved: A French priest who had gone on pilgrimage was on his way to say Mass when he remembered that he had forgotten his Scapular. He knew he would be late if he went back to retrieve it, but he could not envision offering Mass at Our Ladys altar without Her Scapular. Later, as he was offering the Holy Sacrifice, a young man approached the altar, pulled out a gun, and shot the priest in the back. He was prevented from shooting again by people in the church. To the amazement of all, the priest continued to say the prayers of the Mass as though nothing had occurred. It was at first presumed that the bullet had miraculously missed its target. However, after Mass, when the priest removed his Mass vestments, upon examination, the bullet was found adhering to the little Brown Scapular which the priest had so obstinately refused to be without. Plane Crash Survivor: A Jesuit missionary in Guatemala tells of an incident of Our Ladys Scapular protection. In November of 1955 a plane carrying 27 passengers crashed. All died except one young lady. When this girl saw that the plane was going down, she took hold of her Scapular, and called on Mary for help. She suffered burns, her clothing was reduced to ashes, but her Scapular was not touched by the flames. Click here to get your own FREE blessed Brown Scapular.

For further reading: The Brown Scapular: A Sign of Salvation and Protection
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