Nombre de Dios (mission) - St. Augustine, FL
N 29° 54.277 W 081° 18.893
17R E 469601 N 3308257
The Nombre de Dios Mission, also known as "America's Most Sacred Acre", is located in St. Augustine, Florida, USA.
Waymark Code: WMRVC7
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 08/07/2016
Views: 4
A historical marker at the site reads as follows:
"This site has been called "America's Most Sacred Acre." Tradition holds that the first mass in the new colony was celebrated here.
By 1615 a chapel was erected to house the shrine of Our Lady of La Leche. A mission church large enough to serve 200 souls was located between the chapel and the present gift shop. Timucuan Indians were singing Sunday Mass in Latin by the 17th Century. The Rustic Altar further along to your right has served pilgrimages, weddings, anniversary celebrations, and even ordinations to the priesthood.
The founders of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine are buried here. Six Federal soldiers were interred during and after the Civil War. Burials here were only occasional until the closing years of the 19th Century, and most graves are those of parishioners who died between 1880-1900."
The following information is from the American Guide Series titied "Florida - A Guide to the Southernmost State - Part II. Principal Cities - Jacksonville, 1939":
"NUESTRA SEÑORA DE LA LECHE (Our Lady of the Milk), Ocean St., one block E. of San Marco Ave., a small coquina chapel of Spanish mission type, built in a dense hammock on a tongue of land extending into an estuary of Matanzas Bay, commemorates the first mass (Sept. 8, 1565) said in the settlement. A shaded drive encircles the chapel and the slopes of the quiet hammock are dotted with mossy gravestones.
The original chapel near the present site, destroyed in 1728, was called Nombre de Dios (Name of God). When the miracle of the statue of the Lady of the Milk occurred in Spain about this time, the chapel obtained one of the statues that were adopted by many Catholic churches throughout the world. The present chapel, designed after the original structure, was erected in 1918."
NOTE: Although the Guide indicates there was a drive around the chapel at one time, today the area can only be accessed on foot.
Visit Instructions:
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