 |
| Proposed oratory façade, Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Martyrs, Tallahassee, Florida |
A Guest Article by Matthew Alderman, KM KHS
To an outsider, the Sunshine State seems a land with no history. Yet, it was in Florida where the first Mass on American soil was celebrated, by the chaplains of Ponce de Leon’s 1513 expedition. In 1565, in America’s oldest city, St. Augustine, our first parish church was founded, and half-a-century later, our first Marian shrine, Our Lady of la Leche. It was also in Florida where the future United States had its first martyrs—at first, missionaries slain by natives, and then, at the turn of the eighteenth century, friars, Spanish laymen and native Catholics who died at the hands of English soldiers and their Creek allies. While the martyrs’ fame soon spread to Rome, beatification efforts began only fitfully.
In 2015, a group of devotees, historians, and clergy, supported by local bishops, started the cause anew, formally submitting two thousand pages of documentation to Rome last year for fifty-eight martyrs from the years 1549 to 1715. They are a diverse and fascinating cloud of witnesses, their stories leaping from the faded manuscript pages of history. Antonio Inija, a native catechist and the second-in-command of Mission San Luis, died preaching to his tormenters from the stake, while receiving a vision of the Virgin. Father Parga, slain while ministering to his flock, or lay native leaders such as Don Patricio, martyred for refusing to tread on the cross, or two nameless native caciques, burned alive with their villages. |
| Aerial view of main shrine complex |
Soon, these martyrs will have their own shrine that tells their story in stone and stucco, located on an expansive wooded site outside Tallahassee. Dedicated to Mary, Queen of the Martyrs—and perhaps, in time to Mary, Queen of the Martyrs of La Florida—the venerable Boston-based church firm of Cram and Ferguson Architects began work on the project in 2020, with a design team consisting of firm principal Ethan Anthony, project designer Matthew Alderman, project manager Kevin Hogan, and designer Edward Anthony.
The vision for the project, as laid out by the cause’s vice-postulator Lynn Mangan, is to create what the martyrs themselves might have built had they had the resources. Designed in the Churrigueresque style, the shrine complex draws on Baroque examples from Spain and throughout Latin America, but also incorporates aspects of the culture and art of the native Apalachee and Timucua Christians.
 |
| View of shrine complex entry |
Your first glimpse is of the dome and tower of the oratory, bright with colorful tile and crowned with crosses, above the trees, hinted at, but not fully visible until you enter the heart of the complex, but always beckoning you forward. At first, the landscaping is forested, suggesting Florida before the coming of the missions. You then enter through a lofty portal—the arch of the Protomartyrs—into a wide cloistered plaza shaded with orange trees. At its center is a fountain, and at its far end, the great western front of the Oratory, with its with its lofty tower hung with mission bells, its wooden doors studded with ironwork clavos, its tiled roof and polychrome dome rising 100 feet from the stone pavement.
 |
| Section through cloister and oratory |
Within, the vaulted nave leads your eyes to a gilded and carved altarpiece cupped within the dome of the apse. Nave glass might depict the lay men and women amid the martyrs, with the joys and sorrows of St. Joseph shown in the upper storey, and in the sanctuary, stained glass of the martyred friars and priests, with the joys and sorrows of the Virgin. Inscriptions in Apalachee and Spanish praising Our Lady and St. Joseph run along the walls. On the floor are small markers indicating the comparable sizes of the lost mission churches in relation to the oratory itself.
 |
| Section through Oratory |
 |
| Shrine retablo |
 |
| Plan of Shrine Complex |
The shrine is meant to be visited again and again, by pilgrims and local faithful alike. Besides the oratory, there are many other places for prayer, devotion, and learning. The plaza cloister also serves as a rosary walk, with each set of mysteries also corresponding to specific aspects of the martyrs. Narrative scenes of their lives, in paint or mosaic, will appear within the inner cloister walls. The four domed pavilions, one at each corner, are called posas, and are derived from early outdoor chapels seen in Spanish missionary complexes; with the fountain at the center of the cloister, they represent the wells of Christ’s sacred wounds.
 |
| Overall Site Plan |
Landscaped grounds will surround the hillside, including Stations of the Cross and a prayer garden dedicated to the various patron saints of the missions. A Pilgrim Center will feature interpretive displays; in the latter, one can imagine symbols representing the vanished convert villages, maps painted in the style of the Gallery of Geographical Charts in the Vatican but depicting the locations of each of the missions, a carved wood ceiling in Spanish Mudéjar style but decorated with native patterns.
 |
| North exterior view of Pilgrim Center |
The English architectural theorist Ruskin once said “When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our fathers did for us’.” Such an aspiration is not vain—if anything, it should humble us—but a desire to give in charity to those not yet born, and to pass onto them the fire of faith kindled first by Antonio and his companions.
For more information on the Martyrs of La Florida and a video showcasing the proposed shrine project, please visit https://www.martyrsoflafloridamissions.org/shrine-history
-------
Do you like Liturgical Arts Journal's original content? You can help support LAJ in its mission and vision to promote beauty in Catholic worship either by:
You choose the amount! Your support makes all the difference.
