In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
and of course we think of Our Lady giving us the brown scapular to wear
and to have that security of the promise of being saved from the fires of hell
if we wear it to our death in honor of her and her motherly care for us
and our remembrance of her presence and of her care over us
and protection over us and our cooperation.
With her grace and her goodness and her working in our life,
and I think with the brown scapular we need to also be reminded of our consecration to her.
It is a reminder of consecration, and consecration involves work.
It involves work on our part as well as it involves work on Our Lady's part.
Consecration involves work.
It involves sanctification.
Consecration is kind of a big word, and we can attach to that the big word of sanctification.
So there's a big difference, and I think sanctification involves work
and it involves our effort to overcome sin and even venial sin and small things.
This is, you know, what we read in the first reading,
that they that he that hearkeneth to me shall not be confounded
and they that work by me shall not sin.
As well as the gospel, which says,
yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.
So that keeping it and that not sinning is work.
And so important to work and to do, do what we're supposed to do,
not just to be, not just to have that sentimental devotion
of consecration, but to, to work on a daily basis,
hand in hand with Our Lady and sanctifying ourselves
and working against all the small sins in our, of our life.
This continual sanctification and daily working is what the scapular
in Our Lady of Montgomery really should remind us of,
of our true consecration.
As St. Louis de Montfort said, a true, a truly devoted person
is someone who's holy, and someone who's holy is someone
who works to root out all sin from their life,
and then to gather all the graces, to grow in love for God,
and in all the virtues, and to grow in sanctification in that way.
So I think today is where we can renew our true consecration
to Our Lady, our true devotion to Our Lady,
and a true spirit of, of sanctification,
which involves true work, cooperation with the inspirations
that Our Lady will give us on a daily, on a daily basis
to do God's will, to do His will, and, and forget about sentimentality,
forget about this feelings that come and go,
and our devotion to Our Lady, and let's hunker down to,
to this work, work on our sanctification, work on ourselves,
work on our self-will, work on all our faults,
work on our selfishness, and to work on charity,
putting charity in our life, because charity is the perfection of,
of, of virtue.
Charity is what God looks for in our, in ourselves,
which involves our love for God, and rooting out sin,
and love for our neighbor, and practicing all the forms of charity,
and selflessness, forgetting self.
And of course, Our Lady is, Our Lady is our guide in this.
She's our directus, our coach, the one who is there working
in our heart with us, giving us the graces we need,
and the inspirations we need.
So let us cooperate with her today.
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