Dear Saints,

Pope St. John Paul II once exhorted his audience: “put your love under the protection of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.” Under her care, he explained, it will be kept safe from harm and grow in both richness and fidelity.

It’s powerful enough to entrust ourselves to Our Lady’s heart. But to turn our loves over to her maternal vigilance? To consign the things we adore - and the order in which we adore them - to her wisdom? There’s significant risk in that kind of abandonment.

And yet it makes perfect sense.

For centuries, Mount Carmel has been a symbol of charity itself. The author of Song of Songs compares it to the beauty of true love’s quest: those who seek Mount Carmel seek God. What better protection along the way than his mother, whose only desire is that we find him?

Today, as we celebrate Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s feast, we would do well to entrust ourselves to her all over again, so that our hearts may become ever more like hers: filled with relentless love that even death cannot defeat.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ