In the Law of Moses, Jewish men were commanded to
attach tzitzit, or tassels, to the edge of their garments. “It shall be to you
a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do
them, not to follow after your own heart” (Num 15:37-39). They acted as tactile
and visual reminders directing hearts to the Lord. In the New Testament we read
of these tassels on Jesus’s garments, recognizing that both the garments and
tassels would have been woven by His Blessed Mother. Earlier in life, Mary
would have done the same for Joseph, and later in life for the Apostle John. We
read how the sick were healed simply by reaching out in faith to touch the
tassels on Jesus’s garments (Mt 14:36; Lk 8:43-48).
In the Acts of the Apostles, we read how the Lord
continued to evoke people’s faith for the purpose of healing, not through tzitzit
but other articles worn by the apostles. “Handkerchiefs or aprons were carried
away from [Paul’s] body to the sick, and diseases left them and evil spirits
came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12). The Church of today refers to such objects
as sacramentals, explaining that they “do not confer the grace of the Holy
Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church's prayer, they
prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (CCC 1670).
They do this by evoking our faith in God’s power.
In the vision granted to St. Simon Stock, the Church
received a new sacramental. The Brown Scapular, originally an addition to the
Carmelite Order’s religious habit, has been extended by the popes for use by
all of the faithful. Like the tzitzit created and sewn by Mary to
Christ’s garments – the sacramental that evoked faith and brought healing to
the sick of Palestine – so we, Christ’s mystical Body, are now clothed in
another garment stitched, so to speak, by Mary’s hands. And the Scapular has
never been understood by the Carmelites or the Church’s theologians to be a
talisman guaranteeing eternal life. Rather, as a sacramental, its wearing is a
concrete expression of faith that Jesus has entrusted the wearer to Mary’s
heart. One cannot wear the Scapular and persist in sin, presuming upon God’s
mercy (see Heb 6:4–9). Such a thought is abhorrent to the hearts of Jesus and
Mary. A person, however, who wears the Scapular as a sign of his consecration
to Jesus through the love and intercession of Mary’s immaculate heart—and
perseveres in his discipleship, repenting when he falls—will receive the grace
to die in the Lord’s friendship, and thus enter eternal life. Wearing the
scapular serves the same purpose as the tzitzit; it is a biblically-grounded
reminder to follow Jesus and Mary in placing the Father’s divine will before
that of our own human hearts (Nm 15:39; Mt 26:39; Lk 1:38). This is why the
young visionaries at Fatima saw Mary extend the Brown Scapular. Our goal is to
realize the full life of heaven, to love Christ with the Immaculate Heart of
His mother. “Blessed are the pure [or ‘immaculate’] in heart, for they shall
see God” (Mt 5:8).
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Adapted from The
Biblical Roots of Marian Consecration: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart in
Light of Scripture (TAN Books, 2022).
