Family in Feast and Feria

Today is the Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. This title and devotion is one of the oldest to Our Lady, dating to the Old Testament. If you have a copy of this month's Magnificat, the feature painting and article treats the history of this devotion beautifully.

This is my favorite prayer to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It can be said as a novena prayer or just a daily prayer. This version was given to our family years ago by the Carmelite brothers and priests located in Marylake Monastery in Arkansas. There are different versions, but since we included this in our dinnertime prayers, I've memorized and come to love this version:

O most beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. Oh, Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein that you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and Earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succor me in this necessity; there are none that can withstand your power. O show me herein that you are my Mother.

Our Lady, queen and beauty of Carmel, pray for me and obtain my requests.

Sweet Mother, I place this cause into your hands.

I'm on the lookout for a children's book illustrating either this devotion to Our Lady, the Brown Scapular, the vision of Simon Stock, the story of the Carmelite Order, or some connection. Anyone have suggestions besides Mary Fabyan Windeatt's coloring book?

For older reading, I really found Catechesis and Ritual for the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel this little book to be invaluable on the devotion of the Brown Scapular.

Our family just returned from visiting my mother-in-law. Part of our trip included going to the local church festival for Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It's an Italian parish, so there was great festival food and traditions.

I know I won't be creating much of a fancy meal for this feast. It's hot, and my planned meal isn't Italian. At the festival they served "pizza fritta" (or maybe the sign said "pizza frittata"?) which is basically fried dough rolled in sugar...another form of a doughnut. The name didn't seem right, but a quick Google shows other people call it the same thing.

I love checking my Italian cookbooks to see what is made on these festival days. Italian Festival Food by Anne Bianchi includes a recipe for Crostata de Ricotta (Creamy Ricotta Tart). It doesn't look too complicated, and the dough doesn't require rising. I won't be doing it this year...but email me if you want the recipe!

The few tomatoes I thought would be ready when we came back were nibbled on by some creature...it's been too dry here. BUT we had some tremendous rain last night, and with the high heat this week, I should have a few ripe tomatoes this week.

For more reading besides Catholic Culture above, see these links:

Domestic-Church.com

Women for Faith and Family

Mary Page

This 4RealLearning thread had some info about OLMC festivals.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us.