About one hour north of Daytona Beach along the Atlantic Coast is the city of St. Augustine, the oldest continuously settled city in the United States. This charming ocean front city rivals Boston and New Orleans for its colonial splendor. Just as Boston is shaped by traditional English influences and New Orleans by French inspired architecture, St. Augustine provides a step back in time to the architecture and design of renaissance Spain. The city is full of red-tiled buildings, white-washed facades, ornate public squares and fountains that mirror the architecture found in some of Spain’s most glamorous cities.
St. Augustine was where Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in 1513, during his famous search for the Fountain of Youth. The Spaniards returned permanently in 1565, making the city the administrative center of its colonial rule on the American mainland; this was 55 years before the pilgrims set sail from Britain for Plymouth and over 130 years before the French made their first permanent settlement near present-day Biloxi. The city’s oldest quarter remains well preserved, where visitors can tour America’s oldest school house, walk its oldest street, and through costumed interpreters, museums, and re-created buildings, get a sense of life in Spanish colonial America.
The city was named after the great Bishop of Hippo, as it was first sighted by the captain of the Indies Fleet, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, on the Feast of St. Augustine. Along with the first Spanish explorers who landed on its shores, came Catholic missionaries. In fact, one of the first public masses to be celebrated on American soil occurred here on September 8, 1565, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Following the mass, the very first permanent Catholic mission in the continental United States was founded at Nombre de Dios. This is commemorated by a giant 208 foot great cross, built in 1965, dedicated by the Archbishop of Madrid in 1965. The mission’s museum contains a diorama of the first mass, artifacts, old vestments and chalices.
Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche
The Mission Nombre de Dios was the center of a string of missions that stretched across the state and as far north as the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. The effort to bring the Good News to the native tribes that settled the region was made considerably more challenging due to the geopolitical climate of the age. Spain and Britain were locked in a competition for influence within Florida and along the eastern seaboard, with each kingdom trying to build alliances with the native tribes that settled the region. At the heart of the mission complex is the Shrine of Our Lady of la Leche. The shrine was established in the early 1600s and has remained for over four hundred years. The faith spread across Florida, nurtured through a centuries-old Spanish devotion of the nursing Virgin, Our Lady of La Leche (or Our Lady of Milk and Good Help).
The shrine that visitors encounter today is not the original; it was rebuilt in 1915, after the original one was destroyed by the British in the early eighteenth century and a second 19th century chapel was destroyed in a hurricane. The small chapel houses a replica of the original statue of Our Lady of La Leche. Contemplating the image, one can only imagine the effect that this sweet and gentle image had in winning over the hearts and souls in native villages scattered across the Florida peninsula. It was also the devotion to our Lady that gave fortitude to the many priests and laity who suffered martyrdom in Florida – to date, there are over 54 separate martyrdom events recorded, spanning 212 years between the first recorded martyrdom in Tampa Bay in 1549 and the last in Pensacola with the martyrdom of three Apalachee Indians in 1761.
Mission Nombre de Dios, itself, was also a place where numerous martyrs shed their blood. Between 1727 and 1728, the English forces from Carolina and their Indian allies bore down on this mission, killing both the Franciscans and native converts. Over 24 Indian men, women and children from the Yamasee tribe were killed for refusing to renounce their. In 1740, after the English attacked the La Leche Shrine itself, two Yamasee Indians died bravely defending the chapel against being burned to the ground, while seeking to prevent the holy image of Our Lady of Leche from being destroyed.
America’s First Parish
St. Augustine also claims title to the first Catholic parish in the United States and that parish community traces its lineage to the beautiful Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, found on the opposite end of town from the shrine on the beautiful colonial style Plaza de la Constitucion. The obelisk at its center was erected in the nineteenth century to commemorate the Spanish Constitution of 1812, just a few years before Florida fell into American possession. Bordering the Plaza is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, the oldest continually active parish in America. At the other end of the Plaza is the much photographed Bridge of Lions, built in 1920s, which connects the mainland to Anastasia Island, home to some fantastic beaches.
The parish dates back to the original church built on the southeast corner of the Plaza soon after the establishment of the city at Mission Nombre de Dios. The church was burned at least twice during various English raids from the Carolinas on St. Augustine. After Florida was returned to Spain at the end of the American Revolutionary War, the Spanish Crown ordered the construction of a new parish church at this site. It opened on December 8, 1797, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The church was rebuilt again in 1887 following a fire. Its interior is filled with artwork depicting the history of the city and missionary activities in Florida.
Memorial to Venerable Felix Varela
Just outside of the Cathedral is a gleaming bronze statue of one of St. Augustine’s most famous residents, the Venerable Felix Varela. He was a Cuban born priest who grew up in St. Augustine under the care of his grandparents. His grandfather was a commander of Spanish troops at the nearby Castillo San Marco and in his youth, Felix thought he would follow in his grandfather’s steps to join the Spanish Army. Inspired by the local priest in St. Augustine, Felix eventually found his true calling as a soldier of Christ and received Holy Orders. He moved to Cuba, became a teacher at the seminary in Havana and became very involved in the independence movement from Spain. A political philosopher and activist priest, he is considered one of the intellectual fathers of Cuban Independence; he was a major inspirational figure for the Jose Marti, the eventual liberator of Cuba. He was sent to represent the Cuban colony in Spain at the court of the Spanish King, but after presenting a plan for liberation of the Spanish Colonies in the Americas, he was exiled under threat of death to the United States. He settled in New York City, where he served as a diocesan priest and continued to champion human rights and social reforms. He is also credited with publishing the first Spanish language paper in the United States. He returned to St. Augustine in his final years, where he served at St. Augustine parish and ultimately died in 1853 in a home that once stood very near to the statue. His cause for canonization is now being considered and the burial chapel of Fr. Varela can be found in St. Augustine’s Tolomato Cemetary (though his remains were transferred to Havana). It is the parish cemetery of the basilica and is built over an old Franciscan mission site, with graves dating back to the eighteenth century. It is open to the public every third Saturday of the month.
In and around the Cathedral Plaza, tourists can flock to the Lightner Museum – often described as Florida’s Smithsonian Museum – housed in an opulent former grand hotel; the old city jail; Ripley’s Believe it Or Not, the pirate and treasure museum, and the massive citadel eighteenth century Castillo de San Marco, built in 1672 to defend St. Augustine against British attack. There is also the alligator farm and an iconic lighthouse and maritime museum; you can climb the winding steps of the lighthouse for wonderful views out over the land and sea. The adjacent Anabelle Island offers unspoiled beachfront and for golf enthusiasts, the World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum is located in the city as well.
CATHOLIC CONCIERGE 
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