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Letter From Father Mac Hill
This weekend our little sacred acre receives a crowning from the pope himself. By crowning Mary and her shrine – Mission Nombre de Dios and Our Lady of La Leche y Buen Parte – we carry out on earth what God has already done in heaven, namely crowning Mary as queen. I wonder what the first settlers thought when they brought the devotion to our Mother nursing the baby Jesus to these shores. Did they imagine that the faithful would continue to come to this shrine to receive spiritual nourishment almost five centuries later?
How appropriate it is for our shrine to receive a canonical coronation. It has been called by some the “baptismal font of the United States,” and indeed it truly is. On that site, nestled among the salt waters of the Matanzas River, the rivers of living water and the saving power of the Gospel took up permanent residence and spread throughout the region.
I hope the special events of this weekend deepen our devotion to Mother Mary. She is the woman St. John saw as he exclaims, “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth” (Rev 12:1-2). She is always ready to nourish and caress us in tenderness, and she continually labors to bring Jesus to birth in our hearts. She is the queen Mother, crowned by God Himself.
In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Fr. Mac