May 23 Tue
In this month of May we should increase our love for our Blessed Mother; one way to consider is the use of the scapular.  There are people who criticize the scapular as a kind of talismanic devotion — failing to understand the scapular promise (“whoever dies clothed in this scapular shall not suffer the fires of hell”) as a way of persevering in the spiritual life.

Taken properly, as a sign of consecration to Christ through the maternal intercession of the Blessed Mother, the scapular can be a physical sign of the way in which, as John Paul II put it, “devotion to [Mary] cannot be limited to prayers and tributes in her honor on certain occasions, but must become a ‘habit,’ that is, a permanent orientation of one's own Christian conduct, woven of prayer and interior life, through frequent reception of the sacraments and the concrete practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.”

St John Paul II added: “In this way the scapular becomes a sign of the ‘covenant’ and reciprocal communion between Mary and the faithful: indeed, it concretely translates the gift of his Mother, which Jesus gave on the Cross to John and, through him, to all of us, and the entrustment of the beloved Apostle and of us to her, who became our spiritual mother."