Marian Devotion, the Rosary, and the Scapular

Grignion de Montfort can also be considered as one of the principal promoters of the "Luminous Mysteries" (RVM 21) which he himself proposed for meditation, as his Methods for Saying the Rosary (MR 21) testify (90): One should read attentively the Short Summary of the Life, Death, Passion and Glory of Jesus and Mary in the Holy Rosary, taken from his Livre des Sermons (91), in order to discover that the missionary meditated principally on the mysteries of the Baptism of the Lord, the Announcement of the Kingdom, the Transfiguration and the Institution of the Eucharist. In this regard it is a duty to recall that from 1966, the founder of Cahiers Marials (1957-1985), namely the French Montfortian Jean Hémery, along with several Dominican heirs of an intuition of Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange (+1938) (92), had suggested the introduction of certain events from the public life of Jesus among the mysteries of the Rosary:

We find a timid allusion to a possible evolution in this sense in an apostolic letter of Pope Paul VI, Reccurrens mensis october, published in 1969 on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the bull of St. Pius V:

It was necessary to await the celebration of the Jubilee of the Incarnation followed by the Year of the Rosary (2002-2003), so that, thanks to the Servant of God John Paul II, a new letter on the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary would accede to the mysteries of the public life of Christ between the Baptism and the Passion, underscoring that it is "during the years of his public ministry that the mystery of Christ is most evidently a mystery of light: ‘While I am in the world, I am the light of the world’ (Jn 9:5)" (RVM 19).

In order that one could say that the Rosary is a "summary of the Gospel" in a more complete manner, Pope John Paul II judged the introduction of the Luminous Mysteries appropriate:

The letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae also emphasizes the importance of an often-neglected dimension, namely the symbolic significance of the rosary beads (corona), the traditional instrument for reciting this prayer. The beads are not a simple instrument serving to count the Hail Marys but "they can also take on a symbolism which can give added depth to contemplation": the beads converge towards the Crucified who opens and concludes the way of this Christocentric prayer; the beads, a "sweet chain" which attunes us to Mary and binds us to God according to the expression dear to Bl. Bartolo Longo (+1926) (95), the apostle of the Rosary, evoke the unceasing path of contemplation and Christian perfection; finally "a fine way to expand the symbolism of the beads is to let them remind us of our many relationships, of the bond of communion and fraternity which unites us all in Christ" (RMV 36). Such considerations clarify and enrich the sense and importance of the ritual of the blessing of rosary beads.

Symbolic significance is even more obvious in the case of the scapular whose pious usage is also a part of the practices and exercises of piety recommended by the Magisterium in the course of the centuries (96).

The Scapular Devotion

In its origin, the scapular is a small version of the habit proper to a religious order. That is why it is also called a "little habit." The brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the best known and most widespread of these. Concretely, it is made up of two squares or rectangles of woolen fabric connected by two bands or cords; one of these pieces rests on the shoulders, between the shoulder-blades, the other on the chest of the person who wears it. For more than seven centuries, Marian piety has recognized in the scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel an authentic sign of belonging to Mary and a pledge of her motherly protection.

Numerous popes chose to vest themselves with the scapular of Carmel. Among the most recent, such was the case with popes Pius XII, John XXIII, and undoubtedly with the Carmelite tertiary John Paul II, who witnessed to this on several occasions (97). During the reform of the liturgical calendar, which was made following the Second Vatican Council, numerous celebrations linked to particular devotions were suppressed, but the memorial of the Virgin of Carmel was retained and with it the devotion conveyed by the scapular. This was a happy anticipation of the judgment recently formulated by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the giving of the scapular:

The Church has just given a new impetus to this devotional practice by the publication of the new ritual for the blessing and imposition of the scapular (99). All of the baptized may receive the scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel by which they recognize that they are called by God to be a part of a spiritual family consecrated to the love of the Virgin Mary and her cultus. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2002) makes mention of the scapular in the following terms:

The origin of this devotion of the scapular is rooted in the historical events which marked the establishment of the Order of Carmel in the Church in the thirteenth century. According to an ancient tradition, while the English Carmelite St. Simon Stock (+1265) was beseeching the Virgin Mary for his order, whose prior general he was, by devoutly reciting the hymn Flos Carmeli, the Mother of God appeared to him holding in her hand the scapular and saying: "Behold the privilege which I give to you and to all the children of Carmel. Whoever dies vested in this habit will be saved." A slightly longer variant presents this statement: "he who dies wearing it will not suffer eternal fire (in hoc moriens aeternum non patietur incendium) … he will we saved" (100). This account belongs to the literary genre of exempla frequent in the Middle Ages, and the Marian vision which it contains is to be understood in the perspective which considers the religious life, or the simple association with a religious order, as a path toward eternal life. Beyond the particular historical circumstances which were at the origin of the reception of the scapular, a "venerable tradition of the order" (101), according to the happy expression of Pope John Paul II, recognized in this gift a privileged sign of the motherly protection of the Virgin Mary. This sign is rooted in the benevolent provision of God for all of his children. It should be noted that the response of the Virgin Mary to Simon Stock does not consist in a miracle worked in favor of the survival of Carmel in the West, but offers a reminder of the sense of Christian death and the promise of salvation.

The Constitution Lumen Gentium precisely recalled the perennially active role of the Mother of the Redeemer on our behalf:

From this conciliar text we can deduce, suggests the Italian Carmelite Antonio Sicari, that the promise made to St. Simon Stock is in some way part of the habitual activity of the Blessed Virgin: by her repeated intercession she continues to obtain for us the gifts which assure our eternal salvation (102).

A second privilege, called the "Sabbatine privilege" because it contains a promise of liberation from purgatory on the first Saturday after death, is rooted in another Marian vision, quite legendary, that was received by Pope John XXII (+1334), to whom is attributed the so-called bulla sabatina, which is unquestionably apocryphal. It remains nonetheless true that the content of this inauthentic bull was approved by popes from the time of Clement VII (+1534) in numerous papal documents and contributed much, just as the vision of St. Simon Stock, to the diffusion of the brown scapular. Under the pontificate of Paul V, a decree of the Congregation of the Index dated February 20, 1613, (and several times confirmed), authorized the preaching of the "Sabbatine privilege" but forbade that such preaching should make reference to the apocryphal bull attributed to John XXII (103). This precision, which has scarcely been heard, had the merit of clearly indicating that the profound meaning of the brown scapular and of the graces associated with it do not depend on visions which are historically more or less sure and of relative value, but translate, on the contrary, in practical and symbolic terms a correct understanding of the mystery of the cooperation of the Virgin Mary in our redemption and of her universal maternal mediation. The Carmelite Emanuele Boaga recently formulated a good doctrinal restatement on this matter:

On the occasion of the celebration of the seventh centenary, Pope Pius XII, himself a member of the confraternity of the Scapular of Carmel, explicitly recommended the scapular devotion in his letter Neminem profecto latet, addressed to the general of the Carmelites and dated February 11, 1950, the day which commemorates the apparition of Our Lady at Lourdes:

An attentive reading of these words of Pius XII brings one to recognize above all the reminder of the effective role of protection and of intercession of the Mother of God. Pope Pius XII underscores in this passage that the promises linked to the pious use of the scapular may not in any case be a reward for presumption: "let not those who wear it think that they can in sloth and indolence of spirit attain eternal life." In the same sense, St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, canonized by Pius XII in 1947, reproached the "presumptuous devotees" for sleeping in peace in their bad habits while saying that they wear the scapular (cf. TD 97).