Saint Simon Stock: Our Lady and the Carmelite Order

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Today, May 16, is the Memorial of St. Simon Stock, a Carmelite who received from the hands of Mary the Scapular of Carmel, foreshadowing a period of glory for Marian devotion and Holy Church.

Newsroom (16/05/2022 20:55, Gaudium Press) The son of a noble family of English barons, St. Simon was born in 1164 at Harford Castle, County of Kent in England, where his father was governor. Complications during pregnancy made it fearful that the mother would lose her life at the time of his birth. Nevertheless, the pious baroness consecrated the child to Our Lady and he came into the world without major difficulties. And, “from the cradle, Simon had the most tender devotion to the Mother of God”.

As a sign of gratitude, before breastfeeding him, the mother used to renew her offering by praying a Hail Mary on her knees. When she was distracted and forgot to pray, the baby refused to feed.

The story is related that the child abstained from mother’s milk on Saturdays and the eve of Marian feasts, and that to appease him in any discomfort it was enough to present him with an image of the Virgin Mary.

Gifted with rare intelligence, he knew the Hail Mary before he was a year old and learned to read as soon as he could speak. Following his parents’ example, he began very early to recite the Little Office to the Blessed Virgin, a custom he never abandoned. At the age of six he understood Latin and, burning with love and out of respect for the Word of God, he prayed the Psalms several times a day, on his knees.

Growth in knowledge and virtue

Feeling unable to guide the studies of such a precocious son, after guiding him through his first education his father took him to Oxford, where it was evident that he “was wise at the age when children begin to study”.

As he grew in knowledge, his devotion to Our Lady grew more intense. At the age of twelve he read a treatise on the Immaculate Conception – seven centuries before the proclamation of the dogma!

The delicacy of his conscience and the fear of staining his purity helped him to avoid even what appeared to be sin. And his asceticism made him flee from his father’s vigilance in order to do penance by taking as his daily rations raw herbs, vegetable salad and wild fruit, with bread and water.

All this aroused great envy in his older brother who, despite his father’s advice, led a dissolute and worldly life. The holiness of the young Simon was a constant reproach to him. He would lay siege to Simon’s innocence, mock his piety, and then openly persecute him with slander and ill-treatment.

A long period of solitude

Fearful of falling into the seductions of the world and moved by an interior motion of grace, at the age of just twelve years Simon decided to embrace solitude, taking refuge in a vast forest close to Oxford. There he found a tree of extraordinary dimensions with a wide hollow in its trunk and in it he improvised a cell. A crucifix and an image of Our Lady, the only objects he had brought with him, served to adorn the sober dwelling. For food he gathered herbs, bitter roots and wild fruits.

While receiving consolations, a new path of temptations and trials began for Simon. The devil provoked in him scruples, fears and cruel remorse for sins he had never committed. To overcome them, he intensified his austere way of life and prayers and, with the help of the Blessed Virgin, he was always victorious.

Greatly favored by special graces, he received a visit from Our Lady, who showed him God’s happiness for the twenty years of his solitary life that he had already lived. She then revealed to him that he had been chosen to join the Order of Carmel when the Order came from the Holy Land to England, but that he would have to face the contradictions that the Order would be subject to under his direction.

Entry into the Order of Carmel

In order to better prepare himself for these future events, Simon returned to Oxford to complete his theological studies and enter the priestly ministry. However, God’s plans were not according to human plans: the first Carmelites were still fifteen years from setting foot on English soil…

In the meantime, St. Simon returned to the solitary life. In 1212, at last, the first religious members from Mount Carmel arrived in England. On hearing the good news – announced by the Virgin herself – Simon hurried to join these religious who had been charged with the foundation of Carmelite monasteries on the island.

Hoping for better days, the religious members withdrew to a wood in Aylesford, the property of a Carmelite friar of English origin, and began to live as anchorites/hermits . There the novice Simon received the Carmelite habit from Blessed Allan, who was then prior of the small community.

This Superior, knowing the rare talents of St. Simon, ordered him to return to Oxford and take a doctorate in theology, despite his repugnance for the worldly surroundings he would be obliged to frequent. The Saint obeyed, but once he had obtained his degree, he took advantage of the favourable circumstances offered by the foundation of a Carmelite hermitage near Norwich to return to the solitary life, together with other religious members from Palestine.

First obstacles to overcome

Step by step, the prophecies of Our Lady were fulfilled. St. Brocardo, the second western Superior of the Order, knowing the marvels of grace wrought among the Norwich solitaries, especially in Simon’s favour, wanted to have Simon as Curate, and at the General Chapter of 1215 appointed him Vicar General for all of Europe, where the houses of Carmelites had multiplied in a very short time.

Because of the enormous good done to the Church, the devil – the father of envy – instigated a tremendous persecution against the Order: animated by false zeal, some personalities tried to suppress it, under the pretext of being contrary to the dictates of the IV Lateran Council.

Vigilant, Simon united the whole Carmel community in prayer and turned to Pope Honorius III. The Pontiff immediately sent two commissioners to inquire about the situation, but they were enticed by their opponents. The Pope declared that the Queen of Heaven had ordered him to “approve the rule of Carmel, confirm the Order and protect it against the onslaught of its adversaries”.

Retirement on Mount Carmel

At last the time appointed by Providence for the Order of Carmel to leave the Holy Land for more favourable places, as Our Lady had predicted, had finally arrived. At the behest of Blessed Allan, who was already elected Superior General, Simon Stock travelled to Mount Carmel to take part in the General Chapter, called to remedy the evils suffered in the East because of Saracen intolerance. This English Carmelite had an unspeakable joy in encountering the prophetic mount on which everything had begun with Elijah.

At the Chapter it was decided, in fact, that all the Carmelites should emigrate to Europe, despite the objection of some of those present who said they could not in conscience abandon the few Christians of the East. St. Simon thought, however, that it was useless to expose them to such grave danger, recalling an evangelical principle: “If they persecute you in one city, flee to another” (Mt 10:23).

Carmelite tradition tells us that he spent six years living a life of prayer on the mountain of Elijah, awaiting a suitable occasion to return to his country. This came about when certain English noblemen who had fought in the Holy Land offered the religious men the opportunity to embark on their ships back to their country, where they would be distributed among the various monasteries that already existed. St. Simon and the Superior General made their way to Aylesford.

Sign of predilection and alliance with Our Lady

It was in the year 1245 when Blessed Allan called the first General Chapter in Europe, during which he presented his resignation and St. Simon Stock was unanimously elected to replace him at the age of eighty. Under his government, the Order expanded notably, especially in France, where foundations multiplied, thanks to the support of Saint Louis IX.

Despite the protection of the Holy See, Carmel was subjected to new and virulent persecutions aimed at suppressing it. At the height of his affliction, the Saint devoted himself to prayers, fasting and penance, which lasted for several years. It was during this period that he composed the famous antiphon Flos Carmeli, which he recited every day.

However, “in the works that Our Lady loves, things can come to the point of breaking down, of shattering almost completely. Everything seems lost, but that is the moment that She reserves to intervene”.

On 16 July 1251, the prayer of the venerable Carmelite, “like that of the prophet Elijah, opened Heaven and brought down the Queen of Angels“. On that date, “the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, clothed in the habit of the order, crowned with glittering stars, and holding her Divine Son in her arms“. She carried in her hands the Scapular, which She handed over to him as treasurer of her sign of predilection and of an everlasting covenant.

On the same day, St. Simon gave Fr. Pierre Swayngton, his secretary and confessor, a letter addressed to all his brothers in the habit, in which he recorded the promise of the Mother of God given to him:

“Receive, my beloved son, this scapular of your Order, as a distinctive sign and the mark of the privilege which I have obtained for you and all the children of Carmel; it is a sign of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, and a guarantee of a peace and a special protection to the end of the ages. Ecce signum salutis, salus in periculis: Whoever dies clothed in this habit will be preserved from eternal fire”.

A long life united to Mary

From then on, the Order of Carmel spread prodigiously and by the end of the 13th century, a few years after the Saint’s death, it already possessed, according to sources of the time, more than seven thousand monasteries and hermitages, with about one hundred and eighty thousand religious.

St. Simon Stock dedicated the years that remained to him to visiting the Carmelites. He visited several cities in Belgium, Scotland, Ireland and other countries, and in 1265 he arrived in Bordeaux, France, where on May 16 he gave his soul to God. His last words were the first that he had learned to say: Ave Maria.

Compiled by Sandra Chisholm

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