Regarding the post on the brown scapular, I believe Sister Lucia of Fatima, during the final appearition at Fatima, stated that our Lady also appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel dressed in the Carmelite habit during the miracle of the sun. Would this also place importance on laypersons in devotion to this sacremental?

Steve--

If you mean to ask whether such a vision would bind a layperson's conscience in such a way that he would be compelled to wear a brown scapular, the answer is no. Private revelation, even when approved by the Church, is only held up to the faithful as worthy of human belief; it is not required of the faithful either to believe or to foster devotion to that private revelation. In addition, no one is bound in conscience to take up devotion to any particular sacramental, however praiseworthy that sacramental otherwise may be.

In short, the fact that Sister Lucia saw Our Lady of Fatima wearing a Carmelite habit might have influenced Sister Lucia's own vocation to join the Carmelite order; it may even have demonstrated our Lady's affection for the Carmelite order and her encouragement to the faithful to have devotion to the brown scapular; but it does not constitute any compulsion upon laity to either believe in the private revelation at Fatima or to wear the brown scapular.

Michelle Arnold
Catholic Answers

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