The Mount Carmel Society celebrates the Feast each July and hosts and supports activities and charitable events in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

For those raised in Berkeley Heights the “Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel” held on July 16th is a historical tradition.  Over 100 years ago, residents of Berkeley Heights founded the Mount Carmel Society.  A society carrying on the traditions brought over from Italy.

According to the traditions of the Carmelite order, on July 16, 1251, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock, a Carmelite. During the vision, she revealed to him the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, popularly known as the "Brown Scapular."  A century and a quarter later, the Carmelite order began to celebrate on this date the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The Feast celebrates the devotion that the Blessed Virgin Mary has to those who are devoted to her and who signal that devotion by wearing the Brown Scapular. According to tradition, those who wear the scapular faithfully and remain devoted to the Blessed Virgin until death will be granted the grace of final perseverance and be delivered from Purgatory early.