2023-07-15 22:38:00
July 15, 2023 / 3:38 p.m.
Through the centuries, the faithful have come to Mary calling her with various titles that only seek to express their deep love for her, one of the best known is Virgen del Carmen, the great star of the sea.
The Virgen del Carmen is a Marian devotion that gathers crowds on her feast day, on July 16, and its origin dates back to Mount Carmel, a mountain range in Palestine that the Bible relates to the prophet Elijah, and that in addition to being a A reference point for ships, it is considered a sacred place for Jews, Christians and Muslims.
According to tradition, the religious Carmelites were forced to leave Mount Carmel in the 13th century to protect themselves from Muslim invasion, and those who remained were massacred.
Before leaving, when they were singing the Salve Regina, the Virgin Mary appeared to them and promised to be their Star of the Sea.
Years later, around 1241, Baron de Gray of England returned from the Crusades in Palestine with a group of religious from Mount Carmel. The nobleman gave the order a mansion in the town of Aylesford, where shortly after there was another appearance of the Mother of God.
The apparition occurred one day when Saint Simon Stockthen superior of the Carmelites, implored the Mother of God to intercede to stop the various attacks against the Carmelite order.
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While praying, the saint called the Mother of God “the flower of Carmel” and “Star of the Sea”, and then the Virgin came to his aid and appeared to him with the scapular for the Carmelites.
Devotion to the Virgen del Carmen spread throughout the world thanks to the expansion of the Carmelite order and the large number of miraculous events that were taking place.
Of these first miraculous events, that of 1845 stands out, when the crew of the English ship “King of the Ocean” were saved from dying in the middle of a great storm, through the intercession of the Starfish.
As the story goes, that day the waves lashed mercilessly and it looked as if the ship was going to sink, when a Protestant minister named Fisher came up on deck with his wife, children and other travelers to beg God for mercy and forgiveness.
A young Irish Catholic, John McAuliffe, after realizing the seriousness of the situation, opened his shirt, took off his scapular and, making the sign of the cross over the raging waves, threw it into the ocean. At that moment the wind calmed down and a wave reached the deck that returned the scapular to the feet of the young man.
Then the travelers began to ask John questions and learned the story about the Virgin and her scapular. After that, Fisher and his family decided to enter the Catholic Church to receive the protection of the Virgen del Carmen.
From that moment, devotion to the Virgen del Carmen as the patron saint of sailors spread throughout the world and began to gather faithful who come to her festival to ask for her protection against possible shipwrecks and storms on the high seas.
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