July 16
Our Lady of Mount Carmel is invoked as patron of souls in purgatory. The Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel celebrates the patronal feast of the Carmelite Order, named for Mount Carmel in northern Israel, the mountain where the prophet Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18) and where, in the small cloud rising from the sea (1 Kings 18:44), Christian tradition has read a figure of the Virgin Mary, fruitful of God-bearing rain in a time of drought.In the late twelfth century, during the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, a group of Western hermits gathered on Mount Carmel near the Spring of Elijah and built an oratory dedicated to the Mother of God. Saint Albert of Jerusalem, Latin Patriarch, gave them their first Rule between 1206 and 1214; this was approved by Pope Honorius III in 1226 and amended by Pope Innocent IV in 1247, when the order migrated to Europe under the persecution of the Mamluks.The principal Carmelite tradition associated with this feast is the gift of the Brown Scapular. Sources: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/2001/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_20010325_carmelitani.html.