The Brown Scapular

The Great promise

Simon Stock was doing penance when Our Blessed Mother appeared to him and asked him to wear a scapular over his shoulders as a sign of consecration and penance. Over time, this garment became smaller until it took the form we have today.

The Blessed Virgin Mary made a great promise to him: “Anyone dying in this habit shall not suffer eternal fire.”

Sacramental no a superstition

* But wearing the scapular is not a superstition. Superstition is when we believe that an object has power in itself.

The scapular is a sacramental.

The Brown Scapular is a sacramental of the Catholic Church, a devotion as old as the Holy Rosary. A sacramental is, by definition, "signo sagrado que se asemeja a los sacramentos, y por medio del cual se significan y obtienen efectos espirituales a través de las oraciones de la Iglesia” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1667).

Meaning cover with the virtues of Mary

In the scapular, we find the protection and intercession of Mary. To wear it means not only to carry the scapular itself, but to strive to imitate her virtues.

The protection to John Paul II

Our Mother has made her protection known many times. When she appeared to the little shepherds in Fatima, in the last apparition on October 13, she was holding the scapular.

Later, on May 13, 1981, when Pope John Paul II was shot, he was wearing the scapular and asked the doctors not to remove it before surgery.

Father Mariano Cera, a Carmelite priest, said:

“Just before the Holy Father was operated on, he told the doctors, ‘Don’t take off the scapular.’ And the surgeons left it on.”

Later, the Holy Father wrote these beautiful words:

“The sign of the Scapular points to an effective synthesis of Marian spirituality, which nourishes the devotion of believers and makes them sensitive to the Virgin Mother's loving presence in their lives. The Scapular is essentially a ‘habit.’ Those who receive it are associated more or less closely with the Order of Carmel and dedicate themselves to the service of Our Lady for the good of the whole Church.”

He continued:

“Two truths are evoked by the sign of the Scapular: on the one hand, the constant protection of the Blessed Virgin, not only on life's journey but also at the moment of passing into the fullness of eternal glory; on the other, the awareness that devotion to her cannot be limited to prayers and tributes in her honour on certain occasions, but must become a ‘habit,’ that is, a permanent orientation of one’s own Christian conduct, woven of prayer and interior life, through frequent reception of the sacraments and the concrete practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. In this way, the Scapular becomes a sign of the ‘covenant’ and reciprocal communion between Mary and the faithful: indeed, it concretely translates the gift of his Mother, which Jesus gave on the Cross to John and, through him, to all of us, and the entrustment of the beloved Apostle and of us to her, who became our spiritual Mother.”