This is one of the furthest Churches we were going to. I went here first because I have wanted to go for a long time and finally had the reason and motivation to go. Way back in college I did an extended study on the works of St. Augustine's philosophical writings. I realized while I was at the Church that I knew a lot about St. Augustine's early life due to his work The Confessions and his writings on the Church and how they pertained to philosophy but I knew very little about any miracles attributed to him or his process of Beatification and Sainthood.
It was at the end of sophomore year when we declared our majors; the school, Thomas More College, was a very small Liberal Arts school in New Hampshire. I remember talking to other classmates and especially my sister trying to figure out what major I wanted to choose. There were four options Political Science, Literature, Philosophy, and Biology. I had always been terrible at science so that was easily disqualified. I was very much interested in humanity and human experience. As I was coming to a decision I began narrowing the disciplines by reasoning that Political Science would tell me what humans had done throughout history, literature showed the possibilities of what humans could do and experience, but philosophy was, in my mind, where I could learn why humans acted as they did. I decided on philosophy because I wanted to understand why people acted as they did. Now months later I was trying to choose who I would study so in depth that this person's work would stay with me throughout the rest of my academic life. Again I discussed this with my academic advisor and other classmates. What did I want to get out of this? What questions did I want to try and answer for myself? And I had one question that had interested me my entire life but in the last few years it dominated my thinking. How or why are humans capable of acting so horribly to each other, namely the question of human evil? I found an affinity to St. Augustine and the way he was always searching for answers to the questions of his time and he also had tackled the question of evil. So I read about his writings on free will, evil, and the mind body connection plus writings on many other subjects. I read his writings against the Manichaeans who he had been a member of and his later writings against the Pelagians. I read his works that have influenced Catholic and other forms of Christian doctrines. I studied his early life and the path of learning and questioning that brought him to Catholicism along with the dedication and unwavering love of St. Monica, Augustine's mother, who never gave up on her son and prayed for him to find his path to God.
St. Augustine Florida was so named by Don Pedro de Menéndez de Avilés when he and his exploration company saw land on August 28th 1565. The city changed hands several times which effected the Catholic population in the town. When the English took control a lot of the Catholic Spanish population left for the Caribbean and other areas. In the 1770s a group of Mediterranean laborers predominantly Italian and Greek called the Minorcans arrived in the area and revitalized Catholicism. In 1784 Britain ceded the colony back to Spain and Spanish Catholicism returned mixing with the Minorcans. The cornerstone of the Church was laid in 1793 and on March 11, 1870 the Diocese was formed.
We had driven by the Basilica the night before and could see the beautiful stained glass windows illuminated by interior lights these windows show the life of St. Augustine and were installed in 1909 from Mayer and Co of Munich Germany.
We walked in through a side door of the Church and walked around to get a view of the full Church.
Above the main entrance are five images of the history of St. Augustine including the first mass, Menéndez kissing the cross when he reached land, and the arrival of the Minorcans. The Baptismal Font is a replica of the Baptismal Font where Ponce dé Leon was baptized in 1474 in his home town of Santervás de Campo.
Behind the alter are the pipes for the Organ which is a Casavant Opus 3821 and on either side of the Sanctuary are murals created by Hugo Ohlms; one side shows the history of Catholicism in Florida and the other shows a history of the Church.
On either side of the body of the Church are small shrines. One is dedicated to St. Joseph the adopted father of Jesus Christ and patron of the Sisters of St. Joseph who have a convent and affiliation with the Basilica. The statue and tiles were made in Florida and the tiles show four important moments in the life of St. Joseph. The other is dedicated to St. Patrick and the hundreds of Irish priests, brothers, and nuns who have helped spread the faith of Catholicism in Florida.
The east side of the Basilica is dedicated to Mary featuring her Ascension on the ceiling which was beautiful and immediately captivated me. Such a large area of the Church dedicated to Mary made sense since Augustine's own mother was so influential and important to his story and eventual dedication to the Church. Also featured in a glass case is a 2013 gift from the Bishop of Santa Clara Cuba, Arturo González Amador. It is a statue of of Nuestra Sénora De La Caridad (Our Lady of Charity) a common depiction of Mary and the Patroness of Cuba. Our Lady of Charity dates back to 1612 and Spanish Sea Captains who would carry the image with them to protect them and their ships during travel.
There was also a sculpture given to the Church in 1959 by a sculptor named G. William Ellis in 1959. It hangs near the Papal declaration by Pope Paul VI December 4, 1976 elevating the Cathedral to a Minor Basilica.
As I walked around the Church I noticed above the Confessional was the quote
"There is no misery that could be a match for my mercy." Jesus to St. Faustina.
St. Faustina was born Helena Kowalska and lived from 1905-1938. Her life was dedicated to the Divine Mercy of Christ. In a vision she saw Christ in a white robe with a white and red light emanating from his heart. This image would become the image of Divine Mercy. Interestingly her feast day is October 5th, my birthday. She was beatified and canonized by Pope John Paul II who said of her
"The message she brought is the appropriate and incisive answer that God wanted to offer to the questions and expectations of human beings in our time, marked by terrible tragedies. Jesus said to Sr Faustina one day: 'Humanity will never find peace until it turns with trust to the Divine Mercy.'"
The first Sunday after Easter was designated Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope John Paul II in accord with passages from St Faustina's journal. Pope John Paul understood Jesus's Divine Mercy particular in the context of the Easter Sacrifice in his Divine Mercy Homily from April 22, 2001
"Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity."
It is amazing how many times I have travelled to Churches and found a connection to St John Paul II. Not only was it John Paul II who celebrated and elevated St. Faustina and her image of Divine Mercy but John Paul passed away on the vigil of Divine Mercy in 2005. Like a lot of Catholics my age I was feeling very lost by John Paul's illness. He had been the only Pope I had ever known. I had been to Rome during my sophomore year of college and had gone to several masses and Sunday Angelus that he had performed. I remember very clearly being in my car driving and listening to 1010 Wins radio when during a news section about John Paul's illness the reporter said that John Paul was reported to have said "I have looked for you. Now you have come to me." And as I started this blog post I was thinking about that because when I heard that report I drove to my childhood church, St. Ignatius Loyola in Hicksville to stop and say a prayer. I imagine in that moment I felt a lot like St. Augustine did when he was in the garden and heard a child's voice say "tolle et lege (take up and read)."
As I continued around the Church I stopped in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament where a reliquary, gifted to the Cathedral by the children of Margaret Bassing Bailey, of St. Augustine is kept that has at its center relic of St. Augustine's bone.
The windows, as I said earlier, showed important moments in the life of St. Augustine. My favorite windows also featured St. Monica. One showed St. Augustine as a young man sitting with his mother looking up towards the sky, another showed St. Augustine being Baptized by St. Ambrose with Monica at his side, and the last is the death of St. Monica with St. Augustine at her side.
Having thoroughly explored the interior of the Church we went outside where on either side of the Church there was a garden and a statue. On one side was a statue dedicated to the memory of Father Pedro Camps, the spiritual leader of the Minorcan colony who kept the Catholic faith alive during the time that the city was in the hands of Britain. It was sculpted by Josef Viladomat of Spain and donated by descendants of the original laborers.
On the other side is a statue of Padre Felix Varela. He was born in Havana Cuba on November 20 1788 and died in St. Augustine on February 25 1853. A blue seal nearby had his name and "Great Floridians 2000" written on it.
I then crossed the street to get a shot of the impressive exterior of the Cathedral Basilica. The original Church facade was constructed in 1793. A fire damaged the interior of the Church in 1887. The clock tower was added when the Church was repaired from the fire damage thanks to a donation by Henry Flagler. The facade bells are dedicated to the Spanish royal family in thanks for their role in supporting the dioceses. The oldest of the bells are dated back to 1689 and were recently refurbished along with the tower thanks to many contributions from parishioners and many others.
Link to the rest of the ST. Augustine trip blog.
Church Two: St. Cecilia in Jasper, Alabama.
Originally Church 2 was going to be St. Dominick's in Louisiana however I was being hit hard by allergies and my Mom had an event that would make the long drive time very hard. So I decided to find a closer Church and I settled on St. Cecilia in Jasper, Alabama which we had passed on an earlier road trip.
St. Cecilia was much closer, only a little over three hours. We were able to leave on Saturday with a goal to be at the Church some time in the four o'clock hour so we could visit before mass. However we got a late start and ended up arriving after mass had begun.
I waited for mass to end in the main entrance which was closed off from the rest of the Church but the mass could still be heard due to a speaker system. This is really nice for families with young children. They can go out there and let a child play or cry while the parents are still able to hear the mass. In fact while we were there a family with a young child was in the area. The little boy was able to get out his energy while his parents attended mass.
In the entrance way were two posters one of Christ and one of Mary. The pictures were mosaics made by using other photos of people. I'm not sure yet if these were stock photos or actual parishioners.
St. Cecilia's feast day is November 22nd and she is the patron Saint of musicians often pictured with an instrument. In the Church I saw a picture of her at an organ. According to the Church she was the daughter of a Roman noble family and was promised to a soldier named Valerian. During her wedding she sang to God. After the wedding she told Valerian that an angel of the Lord was watching her and she asked him to honor her virginity. When he asked to see the angel she told him to go to the Via Appia to be baptized by Pope Urban I and then he would see the angel. He went and after being baptized was able to see the angel. A church was built in her honor in Trastevere Rome where it was said her house had once stood and her body was moved to the Church. In 1599 during renovations on the Church her body was discovered to be incorrupt.
When I was in college I spent my sophomore year second semester in Rome and visited St. Cecilia in Trastevere. It was apparently our fifth day in Rome January 31st, 2002. I know this because part of our writing workshop class was to keep a journal and I wrote the date and day number on the top of each page. I described the mosaic in the apse of the church paying particular attention to the inclusion of a phoenix, a symbol of the resurrection. Holding the phoenix is Pope Paschal I who had the church built also appears in the mosaic with a square halo, signifying he is still alive. In the center of the mosaic is Jesus Christ and on the right of the apse is St. Cecilia and St. Valerian.
I had a polaroid camera with me in Rome and occasionally on tours I would take photos and add them to my journal. In this picture is a statue of Giuseppe Belli, the people's poet of Rome, in the Piazza Belli which we visited at night on the 31st.
Once mass was over I went in to the Church body to look around. The lights had already been turned off as the parishioners had immediately begun cleaning and closing up the Church after mass. It is a very small and simple Church. A single stained glass window poured light in from behind the alter. To the side of it was a statue of St. Cecilia with a harp.
I walked around to the back of the Church as I was leaving and approached a table with a small statue of St. Cecilia on it and two candle sticks. Above it was something framed with a piece of paper under it. The piece of paper is written in Latin and is basically a certificate of authenticity that above is a true relic of St. Cecilia and it describes the reliquary. The letter is dated October 11, 1951. I am not sure how this Church of St. Cecilia, built in 1999 got ownership of it.
Relics can be pieces of the Saint's body, a personal item closely associated with a Saint, or something the St. had come in contact with like dirt from a grave or oil. While getting lost down the rabbit hole of reading about relics I discovered the story of St. Cessianus, an eight year old boy martyred by Diocletion in 303. I also discovered that he is buried in St. Raphael's Cathedral in Dubuque, Iowa so I'll save that for a future trip.
Link to the rest of the Jasper trip blog.
Church 3: St. John the Evangelist in St. John, Indiana
As we followed the GPS directions to the Church I began to have my doubts about where we were going because we turned into a nice looking subdivision. But then sure enough there it was and it was impressive!
The Church is relatively new having been built in 2008. Out front was a statue of John the Evangelist which is probably somehow a fountain or gazing pool but being so close to winter it wasn't filled yet. At the base of the statue is an eagle, John's symbol. St. John was one of the 12 Apostles and is often depicted in art as a young man possibly a teenager. He is credited with writing the fourth Gospel, three letters, and Revelations. John's Gospel is the most philosophical of the Gospels and my favorite. The opening to his Gospel is beautiful, in my opinion.
"1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of mankind."
In Greek word=logos which translates as word/ reason/ logic. It is a weighted word for the ancient Greeks it was the reason and order that permeated the world. With that in mind it made sense that Logos would come to mean God as the Prime Mover who ordered/created the universe. St Augustine built further on the understanding of God ordering the universe by talking about the rationes seminales, seeds of reason, that in each thing God created it with potential for what it would become. Like a seed becomes a tree so can other things change and evolve as God planned. This is a good way to explain how evolution is possible because in the very beginning when God created he created knowing that what he made had the potential to grow.
There was also a statue of Mary. Now there are many representations of Mary and I think this one is specifically Our Lady of Guadalupe. This representation is based on a 1531 visitation by Mary to Juan Diego.
I went inside and quietly entered the Church because they were having Stations of the Cross. The body of the Church was circular with the altar at the straight in front of me. A statue of Christ hung from the ceiling above the altar and created a very stunning view with the organ behind it.
Around the sides were stained glass windows of different Saints including St Augustine and St Monica!
On opposite sides of the circle were statues of Mary and Joseph. I stopped at both to say a prayer while the parishioners moved around the Church from station to station reading a section of the Gospel, prayer for each station, and then a short paragraph relating the moment in Christ's journey to modern times.
Originally I wasn't going to stay for the Stations because Meg was out in the car with the dogs. However I was very interested in the different ways they tied the Stations to modern times. When Veronica wiped Jesus' face with a cloth they talked about caring for the sick. When Jesus fell under the cross they talked about the burden's that people carry. One topic that came up over and over was the subject of abortion which really got my attention because I have been thinking about it a lot. Personally I am against abortion except in cases where the mother's life is in danger, rape, and incest. The reason I have been wrestling with abortion though is because of the upcoming election. When I look at the different parties I consider my self financially a Conservative but socially a Liberal. Except for abortion. And when I look at the different platforms and I am trying to decide which way to vote I feel like I have to vote with the Liberal Democrat now because I think some of the programs they promise will create a word where abortion will decrease. I think with the medical coverage, living wage, education programs, and protections for the poor and needy that they currently support abortions would decrease because people who seek abortions because they believe they can not care for a child would have more support. I don't think abortion will ever stop. Roe v. Wade will never be overturned so to me the next best thing would be taking away the reason for abortion.
A few blocks away was the Shrine of Christ's Passion. We were there after hours so I couldn't walk it but everything I have seen of it says it is a beautiful walk and I plan to go back sometime during day light to view it. Out front was a statue and monument in honor of the innocent lives lost to abortion.
Link to the rest of the St. John trip blog.
The rest of the Churches unfortunately will have to be visited later. With the pandemic of Covid-19 spreading across the country many Churches are closing to comply with the "safer at home." So I won't be able to visit the Churches during Lent but once travel restrictions and "safer at home" measures are lifted I will finish the trips.
