The longest-running Italian festival in the United States concluded earlier this week, in gratitude and praise to Our Lady of Mount Carmel for her protection and intercessions these past 144 years.

“She means everything to me,” said Eileen Bilder, waiting outside Saint Joseph Church on July 15, the vigil of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the last day of the novena to the Blessed Mother, who presented Saint Simon Stock with the brown scapular in 1521.