that time I stole and lied at the Mount Carmel Retreat House

Today we celebrate Our Lady of Mount Carmel. On EWTN's Instagram post this morning I read, "Our Lady of Carmel presented the Brown Scapular to St. Simon Stock, saying, "...Whosoever dies clothed in this shall never suffer eternal fire..." Kind of makes you wanna run out and buy a Brown Scapular, doesn't it? Why are we not all wearing this? And giving them out as Christmas gifts? Handing them out on street corners? Secretly putting them around our children's necks while they sleep?

I know. That's not how it works.

To be honest, I am not quite sure how it does work. I was set to Consecrate myself to Jesus through Mary last summer on this Feast Day...but for a few reasons, I pushed the date off...one reason being, I needed to learn more about this whole Brown Scapula thing. I had read that if you are to wear it, you ought to have a small service (if possible) with a Priest, who blesses it, and well... it was a whole thing, and sure, it was hinted at that you don't have to do that to wear it, but I am all in our all out with no in between...not only with spiritual things, but all things....and so feeling totally overwhelmed by it, I never did it. I guess I went all out. A year later...I still have questions. Maybe today I will revisit the Brown Scapula...because I kind of would like to avoid that eternal fire if at all possible. I have enough fire here on earth.

And a little fun fact about me and Mount Carmel. I can't hear Mt. Carmel without thinking back to my childhood. My family frequented a retreat house ...The Mt. Carmel Retreat House...for many years. New years Eve weekend was always a favorite there. We made great friends on these weekends, hung out with singing Priests and nuns, went to daily Mass, and took late night hikes in the snow to a stone chapel in the winter, and caught frogs- that my father would put in a giant coffee container to bring back home with us- during the summer. But my greatest memory at Mt. Carmel is of the time my sister and I "stole" a giant, ugly, carnival stuffed bear. The Sister introduced him to all of the kids as "Carmuncle." She held the bear up and said, "We named him CARM for Carmel...and UNCLE, because he's an uncle-y sort of guy." From that very moment, we hated that bear.

One afternoon my sister and were walking down the hall and spotted Carmuncle...and I have no explanation for what we did next, other than we thought it would be hysterical if we hid Carmuncle. Just for fun. They would totally find him, it was no big deal. So we stuffed Carmuncle in the closet behind the Priests vestments and ran away. Unfortunately, what we did not know, was that the smaller kids on retreat had planned a very special procession with Carmuncle at Mass that afternoon. And Mass would not begin until Carmuncle was found. My sister and I sat with our mom, dad, sister and brother, staring straight ahead and TERRIFIED...as we watched the Priest grow more and more frustrated. Finally, an angry Father dismissed everyone, and sent us all out to find Carmuncle! NO MASS until Carmuncle was returned. Nobody was happy about this.

I'd like to end this story by saying that my sister and I immediately confessed our sin, asked for forgiveness, and with deep contrition, returned Carmuncle. But we didn't. Instead, we whispered to a little boy you should check the closet..."We think we might have seen Carmuncle go into the closet....you should check there...", full well knowing that this kid would tell everyone, "Hey! I saw Carmuncle walk into the closet!" Which he did.

Not until the weekend was over, the car packed up, and our station wagon had pulled out of the Mt. Carmel Retreat House, did we finally confess to our parents that we hid Carmuncle. They too, thought it was hysterical. It has become such a favorite family story, that my son Jack wrote a paper on it in High School. An an already "uninvolved parent", I am sure I really won over the teacher with that one. Not sure what any of this says about my family....other than, do you now see why I need that Brown Scapula?

Our Lady of Mount Carmel...you need to seriously pray for us.