J.M.J. Today is the Feast of Saint Simon Stock, who is so closely connected to the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Here is a summary of his life from the Catholic News Agency.
Simon was born during
1165 in the English county of Kent. He is said to have been strongly
devoted to God from his youth, to the point that he left home at age 12
to live in the forest as a hermit. Following the customs of the earliest
monks, he lived on fruit and water and spent his time in prayer and
meditation.
After two decades of solitary life in the wilderness,
he returned to society to acquire an education in theology and become a
priest. Afterwards, he returned to his hermitage until the year 1212,
when his calling to join the Carmelite Order – which had only recently
entered England – was revealed to him.
During the early 13th
century, a group of monks in the Holy Land sought formal recognition as a
religious order. Their origins were mysterious, and by some accounts
extended back to the time before Christ, originating in the ministry of
the Biblical Prophet Elijah.
The Carmelites’ ascetic,
contemplative lifestyle was combined with ardent devotion to the Blessed
Virgin Mary. It is she who is said to have appeared to Simon Stock,
telling him to leave his hermitage and join the order that would soon be
arriving with the return of two English Crusaders.
Impressed by
the Carmelites’ rigorous monasticism, Simon joined in 1212 and was sent
to complete a course of studies at Oxford. Not long after his return to
the order, he was appointed its vicar general in 1215. He defended the
Carmelites in a dispute over their legitimacy, later resolved by the
Popes.
In 1237, Simon took part in a general chapter of the
Carmelites in the Holy Land. Facing persecution from Muslims, a majority
of the monks there decided to make their home in Europe – including
Simon’s native England, where the order would go on to prosper for
several centuries.
After becoming the general superior of the
Carmelites in 1247, Simon worked to establish the order in many of
Europe’s centers of learning, including Cambridge, Oxford, and Paris.
Late
in his life, Simon Stock reportedly received a private revelation about
the Brown Scapular, a monastic garment worn by Carmelites.
“To
him,” an early chronicle states, “appeared the Blessed Virgin with a
multitude of angels, holding the Scapular of the Order in her blessed
hands, and saying: ‘This will be a privilege for you and for all
Carmelites, that he who dies in this will not suffer eternal fire.’”
This
vision was the source of the Brown Scapular devotion – a tradition
which involves the wearing of an adapted version of the garment, along
with certain spiritual commitments, by lay Catholics as well as priests
and religious.
St. Simon Stock died in France in 1265, 100 years after his birth. He has been publicly venerated since the 15th century.
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Our Lady of the Brown Scapular, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saint Simon Stock, pray for us.
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Our Lady of the Brown Scapular, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saint Simon Stock, pray for us.
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