I closed the motel door to a blast of cold Montana air and snow, climbing into our warm truck. As my husband started to pull out of the parking lot, I realized I forgot my brown scapular.
“Rick, please stop. I forgot my brown scapular on the counter.” I ran back inside and spotted it on the dresser where it blended in with the dark wood.
“Thank you, guardian angel for reminding me,” I said as I hurriedly slipped it over my head and pushed it inside my coat while rushing out to the truck. We were going skiing and looking forward to a day alone together, without our two small children.
“Can we turn off the radio so we can say our prayers for safe travel?”
Rick was listening to a song he enjoyed and asked if our prayers could wait.
“We might need the prayers sooner rather than later,” I joked. But he turned off the radio and we began to pray as the truck wove its way along the snowy two-lane highway.
We were still praying our Rosary when huge billowing black clouds of smoke poured over the steep hill that our truck climbed. We got over the top and stopped behind another vehicle, sitting in shock and silence at the wreckage before us. A man surprised us and pounded on Rick’s frosty window.
“Do either of you know CPR?”
“I took a class at the YMCA”, I said weakly.
“Good, people need your help. Now get going.”
Opening our doors to the blast of cold and snow, I was thankful we were prepared for the weather as we both started running in the heavy snow towards the thick smoke and tangled vehicles.
“Mary, do you remember CPR and can you actually do it” Rick asked me as we ran beside each other.
“If I need to do it, I believe the Holy Spirit will help me,” I said, speaking with a belief stronger than what I felt.
A Gift That Quietly Took Root
“Mary, I want to give you this brown scapular. Would you wear on your trip back home to Montana?” Mama watched for my reaction. “You were invested in the brown scapular at your First Holy Communion when you were seven years old.”
“Oh, but Mama, I don’t need it or think I will wear it, “shaking my head a firm ‘NO.’ It looked old-fashioned, insignificant, and uncomfortable to wear. Out of love and respect for my Mama though, I accepted her gift and slipped it in my purse. I told her I would think about it and read the information. That satisfied her, and after lots of hugs and getting blessed with holy water, we headed back to Montana with our children while my parents waved from the doorway of my childhood home in Kansas.
Back to our daily routines, I was rummaging through my purse one afternoon when my fingers found the brown scapular from my mother. I slipped it out of the packaging and read a story about its origin in 1251 and its promises from the Blessed Mother to Saint Simon Stock, a Carmelite monk in England. I discovered the word scapular is derived from the Latin word scapula, or shoulder blade, and was originally two large pieces of cloth attached by narrow strips, worn on the front and back of a religious habit. The Blessed Mother told St. Simon Stock “…he who dies clothed with this habit shall be preserved from eternal fire. It is the badge of salvation, a shield in time of danger, and a pledge of special peace and protection.”
Holding Mary Tight Amongst the Flames
As I ran, I mentally went through the steps for CPR. We first approached a man laying shockingly still in the middle of the highway. I noticed he wore blue jeans and work boots. A blue vest covered all but the arms of a red plaid shirt. His eyes were closed as if asleep, and I couldn’t see any visible injuries. I knelt down beside him in the snow, putting my face down to his, to check for breathing. My fingers started to search his neck for a pulse when I heard, “He’s already dead. Move on to the next person who needs help.”
I pulled back in shock and reluctantly stood up. I moved to the next vehicle where a lifeless man dangled partially from the open driver’s door of a pickup truck. A kneeling woman sobbed and held his body. It was the voice of another man yelling for help that brought me out of shock.
“He’s still alive. Help me get this kid out before it blows up!” A man screamed for help while he stood beside a car that was close to a burning semi-truck and fuel tanker. Together, we ran towards the man but then stopped and stood with a few others from a safe distance. It was too dangerous to get any closer; the car was a bomb that could blow up at any time. Massive towering flames and thick black smoke roared overhead.
Rick turned and gave me a long look before he started running towards the car. His look was seared into my heart, and I thought of our two young children at home, but then I too ran toward the cries for help.
Inside the car a young boy was trapped between the front and back bench-style seats that were shoved together with only inches separating them. Rick climbed into the backseat of the car with another man who had come to help. I did not climb inside to help but stood beside the open door and began to pray out loud.
“Jesus, help us!” I yelled. “Blessed Mother, please protect us,” I screamed in fear and looked up at the massive, towering flames howling like a tornado while the men frantically pushed and pulled. The car’s metal was hot to the touch on the door, and I felt a terrible heat on my face. The car’s gas tank had been ripped open; gasoline poured onto the ground near my boots. We all might die, I realized. Suddenly, a voice spoke into my ear and commanded, “Hold your scapular up to the fire.”
Frantic, I reached inside my coat searching and finally pulled it out, thrusting the brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel high above my head and towards the flames.
“Woosh!”
An unexplained fierce wind instantly pushed the fire and flames away from us and into the opposite direction. At the same time, I heard the snap of metal as the bench-style car seat suddenly broke in half. With the danger gone, more people rushed to help.
As other men carried the young man away from the car and gently laid him in the back of a nearby pickup truck, Rick said quietly, “Mary, that seat broke in a way it shouldn’t be able to.” As we stood beside the car and watched the fire die down, I noticed another young man partially ejected from the passenger side of the front seat. His limp body, thrown through the windshield, rested on the hood of the car.
“Come here and help apply pressure to stop the bleeding,” said the man who had pounded on our window. He told me to help the EMT who had just arrived. I would later learn this man was a doctor and the first person on the scene of the accident. His wife was a nurse and, like us, they were dressed for the cold weather and had planned to spend a day on the ski hill.
After the ambulance left with the young boy, I climbed down from the pickup truck with the scapular still dangling from my neck and outside of my coat. I felt called to go back to the man still laying alone in the middle of the highway. As I approached him, I noticed he still looked like he was simply asleep with normal skin tone in his face and hands. I stood beside him, holding the scapular tightly in my hands. Did he know Jesus, I wondered?
I began to pray. “Dear Jesus, Blessed Mother, and Eternal Father, please have mercy on this man. Forgive his sins, and accept him into your kingdom.”
In wonder, I watched as the air above us opened up, and it seemed that his spirit left his body and flew upward into the parted space. He was gone; his body was now the color of death.
A Shield That Endures
A highway patrolman visited with us afterwards and took notes, but we had not witnessed the accident and only helped as “Good Samaritans”. For months afterwards, I suffered intense fear and guilt. I might be in a store when unexplained anxiety would wash over me. I stressed someone in the store might need CPR and I didn’t want to do it. Why did I ever learn it; I wouldn’t share with anyone again that I had taken a class. I worried excessively about what I did or I didn’t do. I finally sought counseling from my parish priest, who explained my trauma was a term called PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and that soldiers and first responders often suffer from it.
My healing came slowly. In addition to the wisdom from my parish priest, my weapon was the Rosary and the brown scapular brought me peace of heart and mind. At Fatima, the Blessed Mother appeared to little children named Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta; not only as Our Lady of the Rosary but also as Our Lady of Mount Carmel and holding a brown scapular.
One evening months after the accident, the kitchen phone rang. A woman on the other end explained she was the mother of the young boy who had been trapped in the car. She had learned our names and that we had helped him. She cried as she explained that he had died at the hospital. He was Catholic, and only 14. He loved to sing, and he had sung for Pope John Paul II.
“Did my son suffer or call out for me, his mother?” she asked. “Did he say anything at all during the time you were with him, before they took him to the hospital?”
“No, he was unconscious and said nothing,” I whispered, caught off guard by her phone call and barely able to speak. A mixture of fear, guilt, and sorrow washed over me. It left me shaken for days. I wanted to change our house phone number. I wanted to forget what had happened, and I wanted life to be “normal” again. But deeper inside, I pondered the mystery of it all in my heart, and wondered if I should write down all that had happened and what I had witnessed.
Time has a way of softening the hard edges. Forty years later, with the encouragement of a good friend, I decided it was finally time to write it down and put it on paper. I am surprised to find myself trembling as I recall the horrific events, and all these years later, I am still pondering.
I bear the cross of being a perfectionist and a people pleaser. The eldest of nine children, I like to be the boss and in control—of everything. In my seventies now, with hair starting to turn silver, I am a work in progress and struggle with what I should have done or done perfectly, or what others think about me or my actions, including writing this piece. However, I also desire to accept and surrender to the Father’s will…one day at a time.
In the book of Deuteronomy, we are instructed to write things down as a reminder of God’s faithfulness so that when difficult times come again, we can remember the Lord’s mercy and not lose hope. Just as the Israelites were instructed to write God’s laws on their hearts and doorposts, I write this down to remember and to encourage myself and others. I must set aside my fear, to praise Him and give thanks to Our Lady of Mount Carmel for her badge of authority and protection in a dire situation.
When I stood over a stranger lying in the middle of a remote two-lane highway, holding my scapular and praying for him, I understood the brown scapular is a priestly vestment of us who are the Church Militant. When I begged the Eternal Father for mercy for another soul, I know He heard me because I saw heaven open and a son welcomed home.
As Our Lady of Mount Carmel told St. Simon Stock, the brown scapular is the badge of salvation, a shield in time of danger, and a pledge of peace and protection.
Mary Bell is a wife, mother, grandmother, a retired marketing coordinator and technical/proposal writer, and a Friend of Pilgrim Center of Hope. She has written for professional trade publications such as Building Montana, CE News, and American Horticultural Therapy Association News. As a volunteer, she has on occasion written for the Diocese of Helena's newsletter, and as a freelance writer, she has been published in Parish Family Digest and Distinctly Montana.
Pilgrim Center of Hope provides events, experiences, and media; initiating a desire in people to encounter Jesus Christ in their daily journey of life. See what’s happening & let us journey with you! Visit PilgrimCenterOfHope.org.
