U.S. & WORLD
10 • The Catholic Spirit
August 27, 2015
St. Augustine prepares for settlement’s 450th anniversary By Margo C. Pope Catholic News Service The Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida, will join the city of St. Augustine in celebrating the 450th anniversary of the first permanent settlement of European origin in what became the continental United States. Bishop Felipe Estevez of St. Augustine called the founding of the city providential. “The founding of St. Augustine is all about evangelization, the sharing of Christianity with the Native Americans,” he said. Conversion of the native people of Florida was an important motivation for Pedro Menendez de Aviles of Spain, who established the community in 1565. And so was commercial development, said historian Michael Gannon. “That evangelical impulse was nowhere more apparent than in his words at court, addressed to King Philip II in March 1565 when he asked for an ‘asiento’ (license) to colonize Florida,” Gannon explained. He cited the words of Menendez: “I would choose the settling of Florida before any other command or dignity that your majesty might bestow upon me.” The king responded by telling Menendez that “you will include 10 to 12 religious . . . so that there may be religious instruction in the said land and the Indians can be converted to our holy Catholic faith and to our obedience. . . .” The city’s founding date, Sept. 8, the feast day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was no coincidence, according to Bishop Estevez. He pointed to other examples of God’s work in the city: • Mission Nombre de Dios would become the home
of the first Marian Shrine in today’s United States: Nuestra Senora de La Leche y Buen Parto (Our Lady of Milk and Happy Delivery). • The Franciscan mission chain that extended north, south and west of St. Augustine to Texas and California began in St. Augustine. • The first centers of education and religious formation began in St. Augustine and the first hospital was established in the city. • The first bishop of St. Augustine, Agustin Verot, in 1866 wrote to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Le Puy, France, requesting they come to the city to teach more than 6,000 newly freed slaves. • A 208-foot stainless steel cross, known as The Great Cross, was erected for the 400th anniversary and continues to draw pilgrims to the mission. “These milestones in the journey of faith over 450 years in St. Augustine give encouragement to the faithful to participate with a renewed enthusiasm in the new evangelization,” Bishop Estevez said. Father Tom Willis, a St. Augustine native and rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, recently supervised a $4 million restoration and renovation of the church. “True beauty inspires people to want to find out who is the inspiration behind this place,” he said. Father Willis invited visitors to make a pilgrimage to the cathedral, where a relic of St. Augustine of Hippo on loan from the Vatican Treasury will be on display through Sept. 30. “The history of our town and the parish community is unlike any other in our nation, not only because of its age but how central the religious mission was to the establishment of the town,” he said.
“The history of our town and the parish community is unlike any other in our nation, not only because of its age but how central the religious mission was to the establishment of the town.” Father Tom Willis, rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine
An oil painting depicting “The First Mass” in 1565 in St. Augustine in what is now Florida previously hung in the city’s cathedral prior to the 1887 fire. CNS/St. Augustine Catholic via Archives of the Diocese of St. Augustine
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