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November 25, 2022 | catholicnewsherald.com

CATHOLIC NEWS HERALDI 3

PROVIDED BY STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA/FLORIDA MEMORY

The first Thanksgiving Mass in the New World

Thanksgiving honors the pilgrims and Native Americans who came together for a feast in the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1621, to thank God for the abundance of crops.

However, did you know that 56 years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, the first Thanksgiving Mass was offered in St. Augustine, Fla.?

As soon as the Spanish fleet landed in the New World, before anything else, they offered a Mass of thanksgiving on Sept. 8, 1565.

A rustic altar that still stands in the “Nombre de Dios” Mission recalls the Mass offered by Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, diocesan priest and captain of the Spanish fleet. The Mass was attended by the founder of the city, Admiral Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, settlers, soldiers and the native Timucuan people.

Historian John Gilmary Shea asserts that the Mass was celebrated “to sanctify the earth and receive the blessings of heaven before taking the first step in building human habitation.”

At the end of the Mass, the Spanish soldiers stripped off their armor, the Indigenous Peoples their arrows, and both groups shared food.

The Spanish are believed to have contributed garlic stew with pork, chickpeas and olive oil, and the natives contributed wild turkey, fish, shellfish, squash, beans and fruit.

Currently in the mission stands the National Sanctuary of the Virgin of La Leche and Good Birth, a devotion brought from Spain in 1603.

According to the local historian Raphael Cosme, “The Spanish Thanksgiving Day tradition continued and spread throughout the missions of Florida, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana” until 1763, when Spanish residents of St. Augustine left to the island of Cuba and other territories dominated by the Spanish crown.

— Catholic News Herald

Also online

At www.catholicnewsherald.com: Did you know that Monsignor Patrick Winslow, the diocese’s vicar general and chancellor, has a direct connection to the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Mass.?

Daily Scripture readings

NOV. 27-DEC. 3

Sunday (First Sunday of Advent): Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:37-44; Monday: Isaiah 4:2-6, Matthew 8:5-11; Tuesday: Isaiah 11:1-10, Luke 10:21-24; Wednesday (St. Andrew): Romans 10:9-18, Matthew 4:18-22; Thursday: Isaiah 26:1-6, Matthew 7:21, 24-27; Friday: Isaiah 29:1724, Matthew 9:27-31; Saturday (St. Francis Xavier): Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26, Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5a, 6-8 DEC. 4-10

Sunday (Second Sunday of Advent): Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-9, Matthew 3:1-12; Monday: Isaiah 35:1-10, Luke 5:1726; Tuesday (St. Nicholas): Isaiah 40:111, Matthew 18:12-14; Wednesday (St. Ambrose): Isaiah 40:25-31, Matthew 11:2830; Thursday (The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary): Genesis 3:9-15, 20, Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12, Luke 1:26-38; Friday (St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin): Isaiah 48:17-19, Matthew 11:16-16; Saturday (Our Lady of Loreto): Sirach 48:1-4, 9-11, Matthew 17:9a, 10-13 DEC. 11-17

Sunday (Third Sunday of Advent): Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11; Monday (Our Lady of Guadalupe): Zechariah 2:14-17, Judith 13:18-19, Luke 1:26-38; Tuesday (St. Lucy): Zephaniah 3:1-2, 9-13, Matthew 21:28-32; Wednesday (St. John of the Cross): Isaiah 45:6c-8, 18, 21c-25, Luke 7:18b-23; Thursday: Isaiah 54:1-10, Luke 7:2430; Friday: Isaiah 56:1-3a, 6-8, John 5:33-36; Saturday: Genesis 49:2, 8-10, Matthew 1:1-17

Pope Francis

Darkness, desolation invite people to draw closer to God

Moments of difficulty and desolation are opportunities for praying, drawing closer to Jesus and discerning the right path, Pope Francis said. “The spiritual state we call desolation can be an occasion for growth,” the pope said Nov. 16 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“Indeed, if there is not a little dissatisfaction, healthy sadness, a healthy capacity to dwell in solitude ... we risk always remaining on the surface of things and never making contact with the center of our existence,” he said. “Desolation causes a ‘rousing of the soul,’ it keeps us alert, it fosters vigilance and humility, and protects us from the winds of fancy,” he said.

The pope said the dark, sad moments challenge complacency, prompt people to appreciate God’s graces and act as an incentive to grow in one’s spiritual life by drawing closer to Jesus. “For many saints, restlessness was a decisive impetus to turn their lives around,” he said. But, he said, when someone lives in a world of “perfect” and “artificial serenity” where they ignore or do not try to understand their true feelings, they will be “indifferent to the sufferings of others and incapable of accepting our own. Important choices come at a price,” the pope said, but it is “a price that is within reach of everyone.”

It is a price paid with prayer, discernment and the effort of coming to a decision. Paying the price of making a decision is also needed “to get out of a state of indifference, which always drags us down,” he added. Experiencing desolation is an invitation to no longer take for granted the people in one’s life, he said, but rather to deepen those relationships, including with God.

“Let us think of our childhood,” he suggested. “As children often we look for our parents to obtain something from them, a toy, some money to buy an ice cream, permission.” Often people’s prayers also are like that – simply requests for favors without any real interest in Jesus, Pope Francis said. “It may seem strange, unreal, to ask the Lord, ‘How are you?’” the pope said. But “instead, it is a beautiful way to enter into a true, sincere relationship, with His humanity, with His suffering, even with His singular solitude.” It is good to learn to be with the Lord “without ulterior motives, exactly as it happens with people we care for: We wish to know them more and more, because it is good to be with them,” he said.

Don’t be discouraged by difficulties and “don’t be afraid of desolation,” he said. Move forward with perseverance, “seeking to find Christ’s heart, to find the Lord and the answer will come.”