Carmel and the Visitation

Pondering what to write on this special feast day, I googled 'visitation carmel' in search of inspiration. I was fascinated by the resulting contrast between the words and the pictures appearing on the screen. When you google a topic, it often produces a gallery of relevant pictures along with the numerous text entries. In this case the gallery focussed on pictures relevant either to the feast of the Church (depictions of Elizabeth with Mary) or to the Carmelites (depictions of nuns) while the text entries focussed on the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. The text entries centred on the idea of visiting the town therefore, while the pictures centred on the Feast of the Visitation. I suppose this is a typical example of the confusions that computerised reasoning can generate. However, there is a connection between Carmel-by-the-Sea and the Carmelites. In 1602, three Carmelite friars came with Don Sebastian Vizcaino’s expedition to central California. When they saw the area now known as Point Lobos, they were struck by its resemblance to Mount Carmel, and Vizcaino allowed them to name the region Carmel.