Our Lady of Carmel

July 16, Feast of Our Lady of Carmel, is a special day in Trastevere, the neighbourhood in Rome where I was born and raised and where I am living now. This feast is celebrated with a historical procession through the streets of Trastevere with large participation of people.

I was always intrigued by the attitude of some people towards the Virgin Mary; on one hand they call for the promotion of women, the desire of some that they may be entering priesthood, and the like. But then they do not consider that the woman, in the Catholic perspective, has been elevated to an exceptional dignity thanks to the unique role assigned to Our Lady. I do not deny that in the past there may have been there excesses in popular devotion, but this is the people, the real one, not the one conceived in liturgical laboratories and for whom are invented sterile reforms.

In short, looking more closely at these phenomena, we enter more closely into the true nature of Catholicism, although this nature to many may be quite annoying.