Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Cosmos Mariner
Taken: December 17, 2019
Caption: Rustic Altar
Additional Description: This rustic altar calls to mind the Mass of Thanksgiving offered here by Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, Diocesan Priest and the Fleet Chaplain, on September 8, 1565, the day the City of St. Augustine was founded. Gathered about the altar were Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Adelantado of Florida and Captain General of the Indies Fleet, with his colonists, soldiers and the Timucuans who lived on these shores before The Lord Jesus was born.

John Gilmary Shea, historian and Christian humanist, reflects on that scene: “Mass was said to hallow the land and draw down the blessing of heaven before the first step was taken to rear a human habitation. The altar was older than the hearth.”

Following Mass, Pedro Menéndez hosted a feast for his companions and their new native friends. Thus began the first permanent Christian settlement in what is now the United States of America.
Submitted: March 12, 2020, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Database Locator Identification Number: p512957
File Size: 7.929 Megabytes

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