According to tradition, Sunday July 16, 1251, The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock in Cambridge, England. He was the Superior General of the Carmelites at the time.
When she appeared she gave him the holy scapular, the main sign of Carmelite Marian devotion.
She promised to deliver from Purgatory, on the first Saturday after death, those who would wear her habit, the brown scapular. The faithful, by responding to this request, living chaste lives according to their state, and taking part in prayers lived secure under her protection in all the dangers of life and, at the hour of death, confident that even after death she would intervene on their behalf, she who “with her maternal love takes care of the brothers of her Son…until they are led to the blessed land.”
