To see other architecturally significant historical buildings, click HERE:
When a civilization ends, it does not leave behind a tombstone. Instead, it leaves stackings of stones (i.e. buildings.) We lose the remembrance of individual people, the things they said, did, and wrote, but we remember what they built because those things endure for much longer. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tell us about themselves through their Classical Architecture. We remember the Medieval period in Europe from its castles and Gothic Cathedrals. We remember the early 20th century from the Art Deco buildings it left behind. The style tells us something about their priorities, what they believed, what they knew, and what their hopes were. In a sense, the buildings that a culture leaves behind are a kind of epitaph.
Let’s look through the structural epitaphs of our ancestors.
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National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche (St. Augustine, Florida)
Some places are really all about the door. There are other elements of this more than four centuries old Marian shrine that are beautiful, to me, but the door is what really pops. Its color creates a visual contrast with the green ivy overgrowing the facade, enhancing the visual appeal of both, and transforming the whole thing something special. It is fitting that the door be so eye-catching, in my opinion, because it prepares you for the surprising and simple beauty awaiting you on its other side.
The shrine is the oldest shrine in the United States – built by Spanish settlers in 1609 to honor a Marian apparition. (more via wiki)
The settlers brought with them the Spanish devotion to Nuestra Señora de La Leche y Buen Parto (“Our Lady of the Milk and Good Delivery”). The name comes from the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus, hence the reference to “la leche”—i.e., (breast) milk.
Construction
The shrine was built in 1609 at the mission, in what was then Spanish Florida. The central feature of the shrine is a statue of the La Leche image.
The original shrine was burned with the mission in an English colonial invasion from Charleston in 1702, and destroyed in a British raid in 1728. It was rebuilt in 1875. The current chapel seats about 30 and was built in 1914.
National shrine status and coronation
The shrine was elevated to national shrine status by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in 2019, followed by the announcement of a canonical coronation ceremony due to take place in October 2020. It was authorized by a decree dated 24 January 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the rescheduling of the coronation to 10 October 2021.
Significance
The newly manufactured image of Our Lady of La Leche which was granted a canonical coronation in 2021.
As one of the oldest Catholic worship sites in the Americas, the shrine holds a certain historical significance and is a popular pilgrimage site, especially for prayers concerning pregnancy.
Upon its coronation ceremony in October 2021, it became just the sixth-such Marian image in the United States.
This site is popular in modern times as a place to take social media photos. I am not certain that this (or, at least why people would choose to do that here) comes through in the exterior picture above, though, so I am going to share and recommend that you watch the following video. It is a great walkthrough tour of the site, in 4K, and creates a sense that you are walking the grounds:
