Red Scapular of The Passion - Origin

Origin

It is a Catholic belief that the Red Scapular of the Passion was divinely revealed to Sister Appoline Andriveau, a member of the Daughters of Charity founded by St. Vincent de Paul. According to this belief, from 26 July 1846 to 14 September 1846 visions of Jesus and Mary appeared to the sister in her convent in Troyes, France and promised her that those who wear the scapular faithfully and contemplated the Passion of Jesus Christ would be granted a great increase of faith, hope and charity every Friday.

The sister described her visions as extremely specific and vivid. In letters to her spiritual director she wrote that Christ's face was so pale "that it threw me into a cold sweat. Our Lord's Head was bent forward. I thought that the long thorns that encircled His sacred Brow had induced this painful posture." She also described a scene reminiscent of the Pietà:

One Sunday evening, I was making the Stations of the Cross...then at the Thirteenth Station, it seemed to me that Our Blessed Lady placed the Body of our Divine Lord in my arms, saying as she did so, "The world is drawing down ruin upon itself because it never thinks of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Do your utmost to bring it to meditate thereon, to bring about its salvation."

In describing a vision on the eve of the octave of the Feast of St. Vincent (July 26, 1846) the nun described Christ:

...clad in a long red robe and blue mantle. Oh! Love of Jesus Christ, how You filled my heart at that moment! Oh! How beautiful He was! It was no longer the painful expression, the sorrowful face worn with suffering that I had seen in Pilate's hall a few days before during Mass. It was beauty itself! In his right Hand He held a scapular upon which was a crucifix surrounded by those instruments of the Passion which caused His Sacred Humanity to suffer most. I read around the crucifix: "Holy Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, save us." At the other end of the red woollen braid was a picture of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the one surrounded with thorns, the other pierced by a lance, and both surrounded by a cross.

Sister Apolline described how she "shuddered" upon seeing Jesus "rudely struck against the wood of the cross" and quoted the Blessed Virgin Mary as saying that the "world is hurrying to its perdition because it considers not the Passion of Christ...Do all you can to bring and consider His sufferings. Do all you can to save the world." According to the revelation claimed by Sister Apolline, to wear the blood-red scapular was to be "clad in the livery" of Christ's passion and that it "will prove to us a strong armor against infernal assaults, an impenetrable buckler against the arrows of our spiritual enemies and, according to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all who wear it with faith and piety it will be a pledge of pardon, a source of grace."

Sister Apolline also described a vision she received on the Feast of the Blessed Trinity in which she saw a beautiful river representing Christ's mercy in which those immersed glowed with bright light and "sheaves of diamonds and gold" while those refusing immersion "were covered with a dark vapor."

The redemptive theme of the apparitions and its promises regarding the wearing of a sacramental featuring the Immaculate Heart of Mary are similar to two other Marian apparitions that took place in France that earlier that century: the Miraculous Medal apparitions of 1830 and the Green Scapular apparitions of 1840.