The Third Order of Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, a second branch of OFS of Eric Michel Ministries International, and the Third Order of the Franciscans of the Eucharist is the first branch.
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Alb, Scapular and Cape came from the Vaticanum Store on our invoice.
About
Founder of the Blue Scapular
The Blue Scapular originated in Spain and is connected with Saint Beatrice da Silva Menesses (1426-1492), a Gstercian nun. In 1484, she founded the Order of Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.
A century later, the practice of wearing the Scapular of the Immaculate Conception began to spread in Italy. There, the Venerable Servant of God, Ursula Benincasa [1547-1618], founded the Congregation of Oblates of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 1583. In Naples, Italy, after receiving Holy Communion on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in 1617, Sister Ursula received a vision of the Blessed Mother clothed in a white garment over which she wore another garment of azure blue. [The Scapular of the Immaculate Conception has since traditionally been made of blue cloth, thus, it is called the “Blue Scapular.”] In her arms, Mary held the Infant Jesus. Many people surrounded her, all attired similarly.
Beatrice of Silva (Campo Maior, Portugal, circa 1424 – Toledo, Castile, August 16, 1492), born Beatriz de Menezes da Silva, was a Portuguese noblewoman who founded the monastic Order of the Immaculate Conception (known as the Conceptionists). Amadeus, Portugal’s younger sister, is honoured as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.
Beatrice was one of the eleven children of Rui Gomes da Silva, the governor of Campo Maior, Portugal, and Isabel de Menezes, an illegitimate daughter of Dom Pedro de Menezes, 1st Count of Vila Real and 2nd Count of Viana do Alentejo, in whose army her father was serving at the time of her birth. One of her brothers was Amadeus of Portugal, a noted reformer of the Order of Friars Minor. She was long believed to have been born in the Portuguese enclave of Ceuta in Northern Africa, where her father was serving as a military commander at the time. Modern research has determined that she was born in the family home at Campo Maior.
Beatrice was raised in the castle of Infante John, Lord of Reguengos de Monsaraz. In 1447, Beatrice accompanied his daughter, Princess Isabel of Portugal, to Castile as her lady-in-waiting when Isabel left to marry King John II of Castile and became Queen of Castile and León. Beatrice was her good and close friend (and later was to receive her support when she founded the Conceptionists). Soon, however, her great beauty began to arouse the irrational jealousy of the Queen, who had her imprisoned in a tiny cell. During this incarceration, Beatrice experienced an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which she was instructed to find a new religious order in Mary’s honour.
Beatrice finally escaped her imprisonment with difficulty and took refuge in the Dominican Second Order monastery of nuns in Toledo. Here, she led a life of holiness for thirty-seven years without becoming a member of that order. In 1484, Beatrice, along with some companions, took possession of a palace in Toledo set aside for them by Queen Isabella I of Castile for the new community, known as the Monastery of the Holy Faith, which was dedicated to honouring the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
In 1489, by permission of Pope Innocent VIII, the nuns adopted the Cistercian Rule, bound themselves to the daily recitation of the office of the Immaculate Conception, and were placed under obedience to the ordinary of the archdiocese. The foundress determined on the religious habit, which is white, with a white scapular and blue mantle, with a medallion of Mary under her title of the Immaculate Conception.
Beatrice died in the monastery she had founded on August 16, 1492. Her remains are still venerated in the chapel of that monastery.
In 1501, Pope Alexander VI united the nuns of the Monastery of the Holy Faith, which Beatrice had founded, with the neighbouring Benedictine Monastery of San Pedro de las Duenas and put them all under the Rule of St. Clare. Through this, the order became connected with the Franciscans. Pope Julius II established a distinct rule of life for the new order in 1511. In 1516, special constitutions were drawn up for the new order by the Franciscan Cardinal Francisco de Quiñones, who resolved some ongoing tensions between the nuns of Santa Fe and the former Benedictine nuns who had been fused into the order, establishing the community as the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception.
A second monastery was founded in 1507 at Torrigo, from which seven others were subsequently established. The order soon spread through Portugal, Spain, and their colonies in South America as early as 1540, as well as to Italy and France. At its height, there were some 200 monasteries of the order throughout the world.
Beatrice de Menezes da Silva was beatified on July 28, 1926, by Pope Pius XI. The cause for her sainthood was opened on February 26, 1950, and she was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1976. Her feast day was celebrated by both the Conceptionist nuns and the Franciscan Order in Spain on September 1. Still, in 2012, it was transferred to August 17 for Portugal.
