The Enrollment

Today was the day! (Actually it was yesterday since I'm posting this after midnight.)

Father enrolled me and a number of other people who came up to the first few pews after Mass. He read the blessing aloud in English so we knew what he was saying and in Latin every scapular after that. He blessed the scapulars, said something in Latin, and put the Scapulars in front of each persons lips so we can kiss them before he put them on us. We're also encouraged to kiss them when putting them on after taking a shower.

It was a beautiful ceremony.

Father talked about our becoming part of a scapular confraternity by enrolling. I googled the Brown Scapular and was reminded about the obligation to say the Little Office, but a priest can change this to the Rosary. I'll have to look and see if my Little Office books got shoved under the bed. (Dearest St Anthony please help me find them.)

I found out from Father that only the first scapular has to be blessed although we're encouraged to get the others blessed too.

According to what I read in the Google article, if you want to wear the Scapular medal, you must still have the enrollment done with the Scapular and then replace it with the medal after the enrollment. And you need to have every Scapular medal that you wear blessed by a priest or deacon after that.

I took an old cell phone with a camera to the church and had a lady take a couple pictures of me with the priest while he still had the special vestment he had on for enrolling the Scapular.

According to Father, the Scapular was given to St. Simon Stock, when she appeared to him at Mt. Carmel in 1251.

At first only Carmelite priests were allowed to do the enrollment; now any priest is allowed to do it.

The Week of the Brown Scapular

Father said he'll enroll people in the Brown Scapular after Mass next Sunday, July 19. This should be done at First Communion time, but many of us, myself included, slipped through the cracks and didn't enroll. Some converted to Caholicism and some received their First Communion during a time, like the Post-Vatican II church whose standards in the 1970's and '80's were lax.

Something like that happened to me when I made my 1rst Communion in 1976 at the age of 17. One of my aunts, my godmother, gave me a scapular shortly after that. And I wore it knowing nothing about the scapular enrollment until years later when I was 34 years old.

My parents were both cradle Catholics who had me baptized as a baby but were inactive during most of my childhood. I didn't start attending Mass until I was 13 and my godmother found out I wanted to go to church and I found out she was willing to take me.

Three years after I started going to Mass with my aunt, my parents and brother decided to go with me. The four of us joined the parish and my brother and I both prepared for my First Communion.

The feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who told St. Simon Stock about the Brown Scapular, is July 16. Unfortunately this feast day falls on a weekday and Father can't come up then to enroll the scapulars so he will do it next Sunday instead.