By Bénédicte Cedergren

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — For almost two years, Father Daniel Steiner Ebert has been traveling across Denmark at the request of parishioners to teach about the Brown Scapular, a devotion that has been close to his heart since his teen years.

“In my youth, I was everything but Catholic,” Father Ebert, from the Diocese of Copenhagen, told the Register. “I went to church, but I did a lot of bad things.”

“When I was in my teens, I ended up getting into fights as a way to release my sadness, anger and frustration. I met many girls, began using drugs, and was arrested for vehicle theft.”

However, everything changed for young Daniel at 16, when he attended a praise and worship service at his evangelical boarding school. Suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of evil, the young Dane ran out, clutching his rosary and shouting, “I choose Jesus Christ.”

“I suddenly saw thousands of glowing spheres approaching. Their light grew stronger, and the sphere closest to me slowly began to form a face: I saw the face of Jesus. It was the same human face as on the Shroud of Turin, but without any wounds, pain or suffering.”

God spoke clearly, Father Ebert recalled. “He told me, ‘You are going to be mine.’”

After a year of rehabilitation abroad, Father Ebert eventually moved back to Denmark, resumed his studies and went on to work as a schoolteacher. He also made his first Communion and received the sacrament of confirmation.

With the help of Carmelite Father Wilfrid Stinissen and the Carmelite brothers at Norraby Kloster in Sweden, “I discerned my vocation,” Father Ebert explained, “that I had received several years prior, that night at my school, without understanding it.”

“When the time came, I decided to apply to the seminary,” Father Ebert, who had to give up his newfound dream of marriage and raising a family, explained. “I entered seminary when I was 25 and was ordained eight years later, at the age of 33, on the feast of the Transfiguration.”

The Fraternity of the Scapular

“I am from a Carmelite family,” Father Ebert said. “My father has been a novice master for the Third Order Carmelites in Denmark for the last 14 years. His sister, my aunt, was a Carmelite sister. My youngest brother, Jonathan, now Brother Jonathan Maria of the Cross, is a Carmelite brother in the U.S., Holy Hill, Wisconsin.”

“And then there is me,” Father Ebert said, “Cathedral chaplain in Copenhagen for two years and now preacher of the scapular.”

Although he refers to the Blessed Mother as the true founder of Skapularets Fællesskab — the Fraternity of the Scapular — Father Ebert started the group in 2022.

“It actually started before my ordination, when my spiritual director sent me to Fatima to do a retreat,” Father Ebert recalled. “The second to last day, while praying, I heard the Blessed Mother asking me to give the brown scapular to a woman I knew back home in Denmark.”

“I heard and obeyed. As soon as my retreat ended, I called the woman, telling her I thought she needed the scapular. While she didn’t really understand, she trusted me and received my catechesis. I then enrolled and vested her in the Brown Scapular.”

Suddenly, around her, people started to flock, asking her about the scapular, about what it was and what it meant. “It wasn’t just one or two people,” Father Ebert noted, “but close to 50.”

“Because there were so many people coming to her, this woman eventually called me to ask me to come to her parish to give a catechesis about the Brown Scapular. And so I did.”

After giving a catechesis, hearing confession and celebrating Mass, Father Ebert enrolled and vested around 50 faithful. “This is huge in Denmark, where there are about 50,000 registered Catholics. Denmark caught fire.”

The neighboring parish heard about what had happened and called Father Ebert, asking him to come to give catecheses in their parish about the Brown Scapular.

“It will soon be two years since I started traveling around Denmark, from parish to parish, to preach about the scapular. I have, since the fraternity’s foundation, enrolled and vested around 300 people.”

“They are all coming for Our Lady. The parish priests are always a bit reluctant and incredulous that anyone would be interested in this devotion. But Mary keeps coming to the parishes. And when she comes, the people come to her.”

A Rich Marian Heritage of Carmel

According to tradition, the Blessed Mother appeared to English priest Simon Stock in 1251 to give him the Carmelite habit, also known as the Brown Scapular, along with the “scapular promise”: “Whoever dies clothed in this scapular shall not suffer the fires of hell.”

In the centuries following the apparition, the devotion surrounding the Brown Scapular spread through popular piety, becoming known to the universal Church. On Sept. 24, 1726, the feast of Our Lady of Carmel, celebrated July 16, was extended to the entire Latin Church by Pope Benedict XIII.

According to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments’ Directory on Popular Piety, “the Scapular is an external sign of the filial relationship established between the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother and Queen of Mount Carmel, and the faithful who entrust themselves totally to her protection, who have recourse to her maternal intercession, who are mindful of the primacy of the spiritual life and the need for prayer.”

When Pope St. John Paul II addressed the Carmelite family in 2001, on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the bestowal of the scapular, he said, “Over time this rich Marian heritage of Carmel has become, through the spread of the Holy Scapular devotion, a treasure for the whole Church. By its simplicity, its anthropological value and its relationship to Mary’s role in regard to the Church and humanity, this devotion was so deeply and widely accepted by the People of God that it came to be expressed in the memorial of July 16 on the liturgical calendar of the universal Church.”

Under Mary’s Protection

“Mary has blessed all that we have done,” Father Ebert said. “Even when we ran out of scapulars, a benefactor donated $1,500 for us to buy scapulars. We ordered new scapulars from Carmel in Lebanon, and it only took two days from them to arrive to Denmark, which in itself was miraculous.”

Father Ebert and his team has now been traveling across Denmark to tell people to “pray, trust the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to come to our Carmelite cloister in Denmark, Sankt Josefs Karmel, on July 16 to celebrate Our Lady of Carmel.”

“Last year,” Father Ebert recalled, “hundreds of people came. The cloister was packed. There were so many people that many had to stand outside during the Mass. The sisters said they had never seen so many people in their cloister since the foundation of the cloister.”

“And now,” the Danish Father continued, “we are waiting for it to happen again.”

Reflecting on the power of the scapular, Father Ebert emphasized right intention: “Just because you wear the scapular, it doesn’t mean you will be saved. You have to live a holy life with the help of God.”

“Wearing the scapular is a prayer, a prayer to become like Mary, to be able to be attentive to the word of God, to listen to It and to obey, just like Mary did. Our goal, for those who wear the scapular, is to love God as Mary does.”

Explaining that the one who wears the brown scapular does not take any vows, Father Ebert explained that “what you do is that you step in front of Mary, asking her to be her child, to be under her protection, and to become a disciple of Christ following her example.”

“My hope is that all Catholics in Denmark may come to love Mary and that Denmark become completely Marian. My dream is that Denmark may one day say Totus Tuus — ‘Mary, I am completely yours.’”

This article was first published in The National Catholic Register, EWTN Norway’s news partner.