Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
While all this was going on outside, mass was being performed in the
church for those who wished to vary the entertainment. This is a
spacious, vaulted building in the form of a Greek cross, with a
fine-toned organ in one transept, and a statue of the miraculous Lady of
Mount Carmel, between four Corinthian columns, seated on a sort of
throne in a richly decorated dress of white satin, in the other. Both
the Virgin and the Infant in her arms had golden crowns on their heads,
the result of a miracle, for when the Frère Jean Baptiste undertook the
reconstruction of the monastery fifty years ago, he intrusted the
carving of the statue to Caraventa, a sculptor of Genoa, and, not having
money enough to buy her a crown suitable to her position, procured her
one of silver, and one of copper gilt for the Child, saying as he did
so, “You will know how to procure yourself a better one;” and this she
achieved shortly after at Naples, where a rich nobleman presented her
with two in return for a miraculous cure of which he was the subject.
There is a book sold in the monastery containing a list of the miracles
that have been performed by this statue, which was gazed upon with the
greatest awe and veneration by the country people. They prostrate
themselves before her, touching the ground with their foreheads, and
offering up their supplications after a fashion that would shock an
enlightened Buddhist by the superstition and credulity thus suggested.
On each side of the figure are two altars, one dedicated to St. Jean
Baptiste, and the other to St. Simon Stock, an Englishman, who was made
Prior-General of the Order of Carmelites in 1245, and who in his day did
more than any other to increase their renown. On the right of this is
the statue of Elijah slaying a prophet of Baal, which was sculptured at
Barcelona by Dom Amédéo. The prophet has got his false rival on the
ground between his feet, and, with uplifted sword, is in the act of
cutting his head off. He is hung round with votive offerings, and
worshippers crowd around to touch some part of the statue, and then kiss
the finger that has touched it. On a table in front a monk was selling
engravings to the worshippers. I bought one of these, representing
Elijah sending Elisha to look for the sign of rain. In the distance is
the small cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, and emerging from it is
the figure of the Virgin and Child, for the Roman Catholic tradition has
it that in this cloud was revealed to the prophet the dogma of the
immaculate conception, in which he was a firm believer from that time
forward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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