Last week (7/19/13) I took a little pilgrimage to America's oldest Marian shrine, Our Lady of La Leche, in the nation's oldest city, Saint Augustine, Florida, to pray over a new book we've dedicated to her.

It should be said that this place has a truly special anointing -- one unknown even to many devout American Catholics.

When a book comes out, it's always prayed over, whether at an apparition site or a shrine in Upstate New York or a major church, including St. Peter's Basilica.

This time I chose Our Lady of La Leche (for Fear of Fire) not only because it's the continent's oldest such shrine but because it's the site of the first documented Catholic Mass in the United States (celebrated, on September 8, 1565, by Father Francisco Lopez).

There may have been others celebrated by chaplains aboard the ships of explorers, but this is the first documented one and at a settlement that, unlike others, has survived the centuries -- a liturgy that occurred nearly half a century before the settlement of Jamestown and just about a century before Plymouth Rock.

That first Mass was one of thanksgiving (with a meal shared with the Timucuan Indians, which many consider the actual first "thanksgiving").

There is also a new larger church and a beautiful grounds with statues and an old convent graveyard.

I prayed on the book and those who read it directly under a Cross there that, at 208 feet, is said to be the tallest in the world, and though I didn't go there for this purpose -- but rather because it is a special place of prayer, and I always pray over books at a certain place -- I realized how "ironic" it was because the book includes a prophecy that asserts in coming times, two places will be special "beacons of light": the state of New Mexico and  "also the place near the water where the cross stands."

Not only is the Cross in St. Augustine visible miles out in the ocean but I noticed there are actually "beacons" -- spotlights, seven of them -- that illuminate the Cross at night! I have to say the feelings there were overpowering (as dark storm clouds gathered over the waters to the south).

The shrine, which sets on an inlet of the Atlantic,  and has a tiny chapel dedicated to the Blessed Mother, holding the Infant, Whom she nurses ("La Leche" means "milk"), is described by some as "America's most sacred acre" -- that is, the part of the shrine that includes the chapel as well as an archaeological dig site where experts from the University of Florida are unearthing evidence dating back to the 1600s and trying to determine if the building material they are finding is from 1677 or earlier, as far as a church building that appears to be ninety by forty feet (enough to seat a couple hundred).

As an historical site recounts, "The establishment of the city in 1565 can rightly be considered the date of the founding of the first permanent Christian church in the United States. The rustic altar of the first Mass is recreated today on the mission grounds."

We know that by the 17th century Timucuan Indians were attending Mass on these grounds and singing in the Latin rite.

A sign there says the original chapel was built in 1615.

The seer Vicka Ivanković once had an apparition here.

It was the first of a series of mission churches that predate those truly beautiful and also holy, anointed ones in California by two hundred years. Meanwhile, Saint Augustine is generally considered just a bit older than the city of Santa Fe -- in New Mexico.

Does this place somehow figure into the future?

What is meant by "beacon"?

If a tsunami hit, the Cross would certainly stand a chance of remaining!

Interesting is the fact that the shrine and main church are also known as "Nombre de Dios" -- the Name of God.

Through the years, we've often wondered why more churches are not named after God the Father. (In fact, just about none are.)

This one -- site of America's first Mass -- is.

Something very special here.

This place that has survived warfare and hurricanes, as has Santa Fe survived a long period -- again, in New Mexico, which is in that prophecy (and where also there is the old Indian town of Taos with a miraculous image of Jesus; and where a beacon of supernatural light made a man aware of a buried Crucifix at Chimayó). 

Does it figure into future events?

Time will tell. Events will tell. I think by the end of this decade we will have a better sense of the magnitude of what's coming, which I think will unfold throughout the first part of this century, through the 2020s and 2030s, like swerves and spikes, some different from what men have known, many already in early stages of intensification.

For now, what can be said is that there probably is no better place in the U.S. to pray for a book dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, nor to go on a simple pilgrimage.

[resources: Fear of Fire]

[see also: Prophecy: author sees 'swerves and spikes' as decade progresses into unprecedented ones]

[Print article]