Mission Nombre de Dios is a Catholic mission founded in 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida, on the west side of Matanzas Bay. [2] It is part of the Diocese of St. Augustine and is likely the oldest extant mission in the continental United States. The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, the oldest shrine in that region, is located on the mission grounds.
The mission traces its origins to September 8, 1565, when Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed with a band of settlers to found St. Augustine. Fr Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, OFM, the chaplain of the expedition, celebrated the first Thanksgiving Mass on the grounds. [1] The formal Franciscan mission was founded at the landing point in 1587, perhaps the first mission in what would become the continental United States. [3] The mission served nearby villages of the Mocama, a Timucua group, and was at the center of an important chiefdom in the late 16th and 17th century.
First the Jesuits and later the Franciscans ministered to the resident Spanish colonists, and made some efforts to evangelize the local Mocama and Agua Dulce peoples near St. Augustine. They were particularly successful in the Mocama village known as Nombre de Dios, converting the chief and her daughter. In 1587, at the beginning of the Franciscans' first major missionization push, a mission was founded at Nombre de Dios, served by a resident friar.
The Great Cross was dedicated by Archbishop Casimiro Morcillo of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid during the diocesan Eucharistic Congress of October 1966 at the direction of Archbishop Joseph P. Hurley to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Mission Nombre de Dios. [4] It is made of stainless steel and towers 208 feet above the Matanzas marshes. [1]
The Mission Nombre de Dios Museum features the original casket of the founder of St. Augustine, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, though his remains are located in Avilés, Spain. The museum's exhibits also include vestments and chalices from the Diocese of St. Augustine's archives, artifacts found during the archaeological excavations of the mission grounds, and coquina that was part of the original foundation of the chapel. Reproductions of the oldest written European documents in the U.S. and the 1155 document from Avilés, Spain are also in the museum, along with paintings by artist by JoAnn Crisp-Ellert and a diorama of the first parish Mass. The museum opened in 2010 and does not charge an admission fee. [5]
The Prince of Peace Votive Church was constructed in 1965 and is situated at the San Marco Avenue entrance to the Nombre de Dios Mission grounds. It was built to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the mission's founding. [1] It is made of coquina and has a large stained glass window depicting a representation of the Holy Spirit. It also features a replica of the Our Lady of La Leche statue. The church is used for adoration, weddings, funerals, and Mass on special occasions. It is "dedicated to prayers that God would spare the world from atomic warfare." [6]
The devotion to Our Lady of La Leche was brought over from Spain in the late 1500s, [7] and the mission grounds served as the site of the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, the first Marian shrine in the United States. [1] The centerpiece of the shrine is a statue of the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus, which is a replica of the Our Lady of La Leche statue placed in a cathedral in Spain by Phillip III. [8] The original chapel was destroyed in 1728 during the British siege of St. Augustine and was rebuilt in 1875 by Bishop Augustin Verot, though it later suffered damage from a hurricane. [9] The current ivy-covered chapel, which seats about 30 people, was built in 1914 and is a replica of previous chapels built of coquina. [7] The shrine is a popular religious pilgrimage site, with many visitors seeking blessings and intercessions for successful pregnancy and delivery. [8]
In October 2019, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops elevated the shrine to national shrine status. [10] It was scheduled to receive a canonical coronation on October 10, 2020, later rescheduled to the same date in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [11]
Mission Nombre de Dios's grounds include archaeological excavations, a historic cemetery, Marian Shrines to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Our Lady of Guadalupe, a gift shop, a bell tower, fountains, the rustic altar, mission plaques and historical markers, monuments of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, and statues of Father López, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Joseph. [12]
A shrine to the Virgin Mary, or Marian shrine, is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion. Such locales are often the destinations of Christian pilgrimages.
St. Augustine is a city in and the county seat of St. Johns County located 40 miles south of downtown Jacksonville. The city is on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States.
Walsingham is a civil parish in North Norfolk, England, famous for its religious shrines in honour of Mary, mother of Jesus. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses. Walsingham is 27 miles (43 km) northwest of Norwich.
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was a Spanish admiral, explorer and conquistador from Avilés, in Asturias, Spain. He is notable for planning the first regular trans-oceanic convoys, which became known as the Spanish treasure fleet, and for founding St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. This was the first successful European settlement in La Florida and the most significant city in the region for nearly three centuries.
Our Lady of Peace, Mother of Peace, Queen of Peace or Our Lady Queen of Peace is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church. She is represented in art holding a dove and an olive branch, symbols of peace. Her official memorial in the General Roman Calendar is on July 9 in the universal Church except for Hawaii and some churches in the United States, where it is kept on January 24.
The Diocese of St. Augustine is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory of the Catholic Church, located in the northeastern section of Florida in the United States. It includes the cities of St. Augustine, Jacksonville, and Gainesville.
Our Lady of the Rosary, also known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, is a Marian title.
Beginning in the second half of the 16th century, the Kingdom of Spain established a number of missions throughout La Florida in order to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, to facilitate control of the area, and to prevent its colonization by other countries, in particular, England and France. Spanish Florida originally included much of what is now the Southeastern United States, although Spain never exercised long-term effective control over more than the northern part of what is now the State of Florida from present-day St. Augustine to the area around Tallahassee, southeastern Georgia, and some coastal settlements, such as Pensacola, Florida. A few short-lived missions were established in other locations, including Mission Santa Elena in present-day South Carolina, around the Florida peninsula, and in the interior of Georgia and Alabama.
The Spanish missions in Georgia comprised a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholics in order to spread the Christian doctrine among the Guale and various Timucua peoples in southeastern Georgia.
Joseph Patrick Hurley was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 1940 until his death in 1967.
Patrick Joseph Barry DD was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 1922 until his death in 1940.
Felipe de Jesús Estévez is a Cuban-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who was bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 2011 to 2022. Estévez previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Miami in Florida from 2003 to 2011.
Francisco Pareja was a Franciscan missionary in Spanish Florida, where he was primarily assigned to San Juan del Puerto. The Spaniard became a spokesman for the Franciscan community to the Spanish and colonial governments, was a leader among the missionaries, and served as custodio for the community in Florida. After the Franciscan organization was promoted to a provincia (province), Pareja was elected by his fellow missionaries as provincial in 1616.
Our Lady of Europe is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary patroness of Gibraltar and protectress of Europe. The entire European continent was consecrated under the protection of Our Lady of Europe in the early 14th century from the Shrine in Gibraltar where devotion continues to this day, over 700 years on.
A Lourdes grotto is a replica of the grotto where the Lourdes apparitions occurred in 1858, in the town of Lourdes in France, now part of the sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. Some Lourdes grottos are almost identical reproductions of the scene of the apparitions, with statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and Bernadette Soubirous in a natural or artificial cave, while others may differ from the original in size, shape or style.
St. Francis Barracks is a historic structure constructed of coquina stone located on Marine Street in St. Augustine, Florida, named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. The barracks were constructed between 1724 and 1755 by friars of the Order of St. Francis, to replace a series of wooden buildings which had been destroyed by the ravages of the tropical climate in La Florida and by fire, both accidental fires and occasional intentional ones, such as when the city was razed by the English in 1702.
This is a list of replicas of Michelangelo's 1498–1499 statue, Pietà.
The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche is a Catholic Marian shrine located at the Nombre de Dios Mission in St. Augustine, Florida. Originally built in 1609 in honor of Our Lady of La Leche—a Marian apparition popular among the Spanish settlers in the area—it is the oldest shrine in the United States. It was elevated to national shrine status in 2019 and received a canonical coronation in 2021.
Our Lady of La Leche is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a statue of her breastfeeding the infant Jesus Christ. It is said to be one of the oldest of all Marian devotions.
The Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, also known as The Miraculous Medal Shrine, is at 500 E. Chelten Ave. in the East Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The church now known as the Basilica Shrine was founded by the Congregation of the Mission in 1879 as the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception on the grounds of St. Vincent's Seminary. In 1927, Fr. Joseph Skelly, CM, commissioned the creation of Mary's Central Shrine within the chapel to promote devotion to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, a title of the Virgin Mary originating with her apparitions to Saint Catherine Labouré in Paris in 1830.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)