A Novena to the Immaculate Queen of Florida.
A Novena to the Immaculate Queen of Florida.
Ave Maria! Tomorrow, starts the Novena to Our Lady de La Leche, the Queen of La Florida. This novena will begin on October 3 and end on October 11, the feast of the Motherhood of Blessed Mary, which is also the feast of Our Lady de la Leche. This year, this novena will become even more efficacious since the priest who enshrined Our Lady de La Leche in Florida, will be beatified by Rome on 31 October 2026.
A summary on the history of Our Lady de la Leche in Florida.
The story of Our Lady de La Leche begins way before her arrival in Florida. Devotion to the nursing Madonna dates back to 150 AD, with one of the oldest icons still existing in the St. Priscilla Catacombs in Rome. This devotions continued to exist in certain places across Christendom and made its way to Florida some time before 1596. Before that year, Franciscan missionaries had established a confraternity to our Lady de la Leche for the Indian converts living at Mission Nonbre de Dios. Then in 1596 blessed Father blas Rodriguez arrived in St. Augustine and with him a replica statue of our Lady de la Leche from Madrid. Father Rodriguez would enshrine our Lady de la Leche above the altar at Mission Nombre de Dios. This Lady de la Leche would see tremendous conversions among the native tribes of Florida. For Almost 100 years, Florida would see an age of Mary and the faith would flourish and thrive. In 1606, Florida received its first episcopal visit by ahis Excellency, Juan de las Cabezas Altamirano, bishop of Santiago Cuba. During this first episcopal visit, Florida sees its first priestly ordinations at the San Francisco Seminary in St. Augustine. Bishop Altamirano would also visited the Missions, where he would personally confirm 3,500 individuals and baptize 1,200 more. Bishop Altamirano would note the great devotion of the Indian converts to our lady de la Leche, writing that the Inage would draw pilgrimages from across the missions to visit the Mission nombre de Dios. For this reason, Bishop Altamiarno would approve for a separate chapel to be built for our lady de la Leche, to be used as a shrine for the Indians. This second chapel would be completed in 1609.
Then again in 1649, Florida would receive its second episcopal visit from His Excellency, Gabriel Díaz Vara y Calderón, bishop of Santiago Cuba. Bishop Calderon would travel across Florida, including the panhandle, and would visit 75 Mission Chapels. By 1690, there was an estimated 250,000 thousands Catholics livings across Spanish Florida and over 150 Mission chapels. This glorious age of conversions would come to an end In 1702, when the British would attempt to capture St. Augustine and all of Florida with it. The British would suffer a humiliating defeat and fail to capture St. Augustine, but this would mark the beginning of the end of the age of conversions and the start of nearly 200 years of revolutionary chaos for Florida.
In 1704, British militia and their Indian allies would initiate a campaign of attacks on the largely unguarded panhandle of Florida. Thousands of Catholic Indians would be enslaved by the British and thousands more would be killed either directly more as a result of being displaced in winter and forced to flee. During this time almost a dozen Franciscans would be killed and hundreds of faithful Catholic Indians would choose torture and death rather than leaving the faith. Those poor Catholics would be driven from their homes, forced to flee in the dead of winter to fortified cities like Saint Augustine and Pensacola. Eventually, this violence would reach the mission church of our Lady de la Leche.
In 1728, British militia pursuing Yamasee refugees would sack Mission Nombre de Dios, and the shrine of our lady de la Leche. Colonel John Palmer led the attack, and boldly showed his hatred for the Holy Faith and the Mother of God. Colonel Palmer would ride his horse into the chapel, dethron the our lady de la Leche, and use her statue for rifle target practice. In 1740, the British would attempt to capture St. Augustine again and would fail miserably. During the retreat, Colonel Palmer the iconoclast would be brutally killed at the battle of bloody Moses. The only chapels to survive the British attacks would be the st Augustine parish and the chapel in the fort of San Marco. These attacks, mostly initiated by colonial British militia, would go on through the mid 1700s. The last attack occurred in 1761, near Molino Florida. Just two years later in 1763, Florida would become a British possession. Despite the British never being able to capture Pensacola or St. August, Florida was annexed as part of the Treaty of Paris. British rule however, devotion to Our Lady de la Leche survived among the faithful who remained in Florida and was taken up by the Catholics Minorcans who came to St. Augustine in 1777. In 1783, Florida would be returned to Spain as part the peace of Paris, of their defeat against the US rebels, and French and Spanish forces. In 1790, Franciscan Fathers would returned to St. Augustine and rebuild the Mission Nombre de Dios and the shrine to our lady de la Leche. However, this glorious reconquista of Florida would be short lived. Beginning as early as 1812, the US government would begin a covert campaign to wrestle Florida from Spain. Begging in 1810, US settlers and invading insurgents would begin a series of rebellions and campaigns against Spanish rule. From 1810 to 1819, Florida would be invaded more than five times by US Federal military and volunteer Milita alike. Finally in 1821, Spain would be forced to surrender Florida to the United States. The US federal government would then seize all Church property in Florida, claiming in a court of law, that since there was no separation of church and state in Spain, all church property was now property of the federal government. Eventually, the Dioceses of Baltimore took this to court and won back some of the church properties, like St Augustine Parish and St. Michael’s in Pensacola. Unfortunately, most of the mission lands were auctioned by the US government, including mission Nombre de Dios and the Chapel of our Lady de la Leche. The former lands of Mission Nombre de Dios would become an orchard, and the chapels would remind in ruins for nearly 50 years. The Chapel aarea however, would never be plowed or burn upon, likely because the land owners recognized the site or at least its cemetery. In 1850, His Excellency Augustin Vérot PSS, bishop of Savannah, made an episcopal visit to the parishes in Florida. Since the times of US annexation, Catholics became a tiny minority in Florida, a state that was widely viewed as a unpopulated frontier already. While in St. Augustine, bishop Verot visited the ruins of the Chapel Our Lady de la Leche and described a “mystical peace” while praying there. This inspired him to ask the landowners if they would sell the land, which they agreed to for the price of $1 or roughly 50 dollars today. In 1870, Bishop Verot would volunteer to become the first bishop of St. Augustine and one of his first actions was to erect and consecrate a Chapel for Our Lady de la Leche. At the time of Bishop Verot, Florida had only seven parishes and only four priests. Bishop Verot would entrust Florida to this “Lady Leche” and would die in St. Augustine in 1876, and be buried on the former grounds of Mission Guadalupe de Tolomato north of St. Augustine.
In 1920, Bishop Patrick Larry of St. Augustine would establish a statewide pilgrimage to Mission Nombre de Dios and Lady Leche on low Sunday, a tradition still kept by the fathers and faithful of St. Thomas More priory SSPX. On October 10, 2021, our Lady de la Leche received a Canonical Coronation. Today, the shrine continues to draw thousands of pillages each year, and Our Lady remains as a symbol of the enduring Catholic faith in Florida. Viva Maria, Reina de la Florida !
A reflection on the importance of Consecration to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort.
144. S 1. The most holy Virgin, who is a Mother of sweetness and mercy, and who never lets herself be vanquished in love and liberality, seeing that we give ourselves entirely to her, to honour and to serve her, and for that end strip ourselves of all that is dearest to us in order to adorn her, meets us in the same spirit. She also gives her whole self, and gives it in an unspeakable manner, to him who gives all to her. She causes him to be engulfed in the abyss of her graces. She adorns him with her merits; she supports him with her power; she illuminates him with her light; she inflames him with her love; she communicates to him her virtues, her humility, her faith, her purity, and the rest. She makes herself his bail, his supplement, and his dear all towards Jesus. In a word, as that person is all consecrated to Mary, so is Mary all for him; after such a fashion that we can say of that perfect servant and child of Mary what St. John the Evangelist said of himself, that he took the holy Virgin for all his goods, Accepit eam discipulus in sua. 145. It is this which produces in the soul, if it is faithful, a great distrust, contempt, and hatred of self, and a great confidence and a great self-abandonment in the Blessed Virgin, its good Mistress. A man no longer, as before, leans on his own dispositions, intentions, merits, and good works; because, having made an entire sacrifice of them to Jesus Christ by that good Mother, he has but one treasure now, where all his goods are laid up, and that is no longer in himself; for his treasure is Mary. It is this which makes him approach our Lord without servile or scrupulous fear, and pray to Him with great confidence. It is this which makes him enter into the sentiments of the devout and learned Abbot Rupert, who, making an allusion to the victory that Jacob gained over the angel, said to our Blessed Lady these beautiful words: "O Mary, my Princess, Immaculate Mother of a God-man, Jesus Christ, I desire to wrestle with that Man, namely, the Divine Word, not armed with my own merits, but with yours." O Domina, Dei genitrix Maria, et incorrupta Mater Dei et Hominis, non meis, sed tuis armatus meritis, cum isto Viro, seu Verbo Dei, luctari cupio (Rup.
Prolog. in Cantic.). Oh, how strong and mighty we are with Jesus Christ, when we are armed with the worthy merits and intercession of the Mother of God, who, as St. Augustine says, has lovingly vanquished the Most High.
Novena prayer:
Lovely Lady of La Leche, most loving Mother of Jesus, and my mother, listen to my
humble prayer. Your motherly heart knows my every wish, my every need. To you only, his
spotless Virgin Mother, has your Divine Son given to understand the sentiments which fill
my soul. Yours was the sacred privilege of being the Mother of the Savior.
Intercede with him now, my loving mother, that in accordance with his will (mention
your request here). This I ask, O Lady of La Leche, in the name of your Divine Son, my
Lord and Savior. Amen.
V. O Mary, conceived without sin.
R. Pray for us who have recourse to you.
Our Lady of La Leche, pray for us!
Father Blas Rodriguez, Pray for us!
Holy Martyrs of Florida, pray for us!
References:
True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort.
OUR STORY, Sharing the Story of the Graces of Mary for Over 450 Year on "The Sacred Acre"
OUR LADY OF LA LECHE ARRIVES IN AMERICAS
Nursing Madonnas: The motherhood of the Blessed Virgin as celebrated in art
History of the Devotion to Our Lady of La Leche and Her Confraternity; Presented by Dr. Mary Soha.
Archaeology at the 17th Century Shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Leche
at Mission Nombre de Dios
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