Cloistered Carmelite Nuns in Bunda Monastery, dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, asked me to come today to celebrate a Holy Mass of the solemnity with them and the local Catholic community of Bunda Parish. I was very happy to comply to their request as I am a member of a Third Order and Brown Scapular has been with me for more than fifteen years now.
So, I took two sisters with me, as other are busy in the health center and the pre-school, and drove to Bunda, first for the regular confessions of Carmelite nuns, then for the solemn Mass with a parochial choir of Bunda attending, the faithful, benefactors and well-wishers of the nuns.
I feel immensely privileged whenever I have this opportunity to celebrate a Holy Mass in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and preach on the meaning of Brown Scapular and correct devotion to Our Lady.
This day, July 16, has an additional meaning to me, as this is the day on which I celebrated my very first Mass in Musoma Cathedral eight years ago, after being transferred from Kiabakari to Musoma by the late Bishop Justin Samba. I read this as a clear sign that this transfer was under control of Our Lady and I will be in her hands and under her maternal protection in Musoma Cathedral, as I intended to utilize my time there to show my gratitude and love to Our Lady, for her maternal protection and guidance in my life and vocation. My very first Mass after being handed over the parish on July 15, 2002, which was Monday, was the following morning on July 16, the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I felt safe and confident Our Lady will be with me all the way while I work in Musoma parish.
Today, after eight years since that day, I was blessed with another opportunity to show my love and gratitude to Our Lady. To be there on the holy mountain of Carmel in Bunda has a very special meaning to me and generates many emotions and feelings along with fond memories...
The statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the monastery chapel conveyed a particularly strong message today. The Brown Scapular in Child Jesus' and Our Lady’s extended hands is a missing piece in a Christian quest of perfection. Each one of us is blessed with so many gifts, we are good in certain areas, but also each one of us lacks something in other areas. There are no perfect beings in this world, only Jesus and Our Lady themselves.
Each one of us, due to our inherited state of imperfection after the original sin and its consequences, lacks ‘material’ to accomplish perfection out of our own merit. I will cover myself with perfection cloth in some areas of my personality and activity, the other areas will remain exposed. There is not enough cloth of perfection in me to clad myself completely. Only Jesus and Mary are totally clothed in perfection.
That is why God wants us to live in a community. He said in the Book of Genesis that it is not good for a man to live alone... By sharing what is best in us, together we come to a perfection. I have something you don’t have. You have something I do not have and even struggling and trying the best I can, I will not have certain gifts you have – for instance being piano virtuoso, or a mathematical genius, or a great singer, or a person gifted with mediation skills etc. I cannot be perfect in everything, I can only be perfect in some areas in my life, that is why I need you to fill in void spaces in order to be perfect... We need each other to come to perfection. Alone I will wither and perish in most cases or just simply stay as I am, without multiplying my gifts by sharing them and receiving lacking gifts from others...
The Brown Scapular is a missing piece of my perfection. Our Lady is a headmistress in the school of love of Jesus and human/divine perfection. She is the surest way to bring us to Christ, he is the perfect being (using Luc Besson’s expression from the movie ‘The Fifth Element’). Surrendering to her maternal care, guidance, intercession, imitating her life is the best way to achieve perfection in our lives as intended by God himself.
Today Our Lady shows me Brown Scapular and tells me – ‘Look, this is your missing piece! It is in my hands! Come into my hands and I will lead you to human and Christian perfection, I will lead you to Christ, I will lead you to His Mystical Body which is His Church, to perfect each other sharing what’s best in you and receiving what is best in others’.
I have already written on the meaning of Brown Scapular and the pledges and promises attached to this devotion in my earlier posts. Today I look at the Brown Scapular from a different perspective - as a symbol of this missing piece in the puzzle of the perfection of my life, my humanity, my Christianity, my person, my vocation...
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