The Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel had its beginnings in the late 12th Century. Among those who went on crusade to fight for control of the Holy Land, some laid down their arms and took up a life of prayer and penance. One such group of penitents came together near the Spring of Elijah at the foot of Mt. Carmel. They built themselves a common oratory, which they dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. While they shared some things in common, for the most part they lived as hermits, spending their days in solitude, silence, simple work, and prayer.

This early community grew and soon sought formal approval for itself. In 1209 it approached the local bishop, Albert Avogadro, Patriarch of Jerusalem. He composed for them a letter which briefly summed up their way of life. In it he also exhorted them to diligence in work and silence and to vigilance in prayer. This letter is known as the Rule of Carmel.

From these humble beginnings the Order continued to grow, making its way back to Europe where new communities were founded. Having become international in scope, it soon felt the need for not just local but papal approval. Pope Honorius III granted this approval in 1226, renewed by Pope Gregory IX in 1229.

As the Order prospered, it began to assimilate itself to a new movement in religious life, the Mendicant Movement, inaugurated by St. Francis of Assisi. This movement stressed small communities of friars (“brothers”), not large communities of monks. It founded religious houses in towns and cities in order to be nearer to the people and minister to their needs, rather than in remote, rural areas, where on went “to flee the world.” It enjoined its members especially to the work of preaching, teaching, and pastoral care in imitation of the of the itinerant Christ and his small band of Apostles.

Accordingly, the Rule of Carmel was revised to accommodate the Carmelite Order to this new style of religious life. These revisions received papal approval in 1257 by Pope Innocent IV. The Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel is regarded, therefore, as one of the Mendicant Orders of the Church. Its roots, though, lay in the life of solitude, silence, penance, and prayer inaugurated by those first hermits living near the Spring of Elijah at the foot of Mt. Carmel. (taken from Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower.)