Our Lady of La Leche

    During early Florida mornings, sunlight is a milky color as it spills across the still-sleepy little chapel of Our Lady of La Leche. Droopy flowers wet with dew and palmettos line serpentine paths leading to the chapel. In the early 1600s, the Spanish settlers of St. Augustine established the first Shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the United States here and began devotion to Our Lady of La Leche or Nuestra Señora de La Leche y Buen Parto (Our Lady of the Milk and Happy Delivery). Today, people continue to come here to pray for fertility, for the health of their children, and for the safe delivery of those expecting. It is lovely to visit the tranquil chapel and wander the sacred gardens in the morning. Then, the light has a gentle mother’s touch as it uncovers the land, and it bears no hint of its later ferocity and overbearing heat. When the hours are young, the sun is merciful and kind, and all the world around Our Lady of La Leche is quiet and at peace.

Firebush, native