The Diocese of St. Augustine held its annual Founder’s Day celebration to mark the 460th Anniversary of Spanish arrival to the land that is now St. Augustine and the first Catholic Mass of Thanksgiving on its shores.
It was a day full of faith and evangelical history, as Bishop Erik Pohlmeier served as celebrant for Mass at the rustic altar on the day with many in attendance.
What makes this Founder’s Day celebration unique is that it took place during a jubilee year where both Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have reflected themes of hope.
So, when Bishop Erik Pohlmeier was considering what to speak about during his homily at the Founder’s Day Mass, he focused on a recent reflection of Pope Leo XIV about the last words of Jesus on the cross.
“As Jesus spoke the words, ‘I thirst,’ it had both the human meaning of thirst after the passion he endured, but also a more profound, deeper reality, the divine thirst for souls,” he said. “Jesus spoke of his desire, his thirst, to gather all souls to himself.”
Those words of Jesus have resonated throughout history and have been ever present in St. Augustine’s evangelical roots that have played a major role during the past 460 years and will continue to in the future.
A reenactment of the Spanish landing on the shores of Mission Nombre de Dios on Matanzas Bay preceded the Mass.
“It was Jesus’s desire for the souls of those who would experience the moment of the landing that we witnessed, but just as much the thirst of Jesus for the souls of us who are gathered here today,” he said. “We celebrate these moments in time. Joseph accepting the birth of Jesus, the cross where Jesus expressed his thirst, the moment in which the faith landed, and this moment in the mind of God, these are all the same. These are not so much a progression in history as they are the fulfillment of everything that the cross was meant to be.”
While much of the celebration looked back on the past, Bishop Pohlmeier wanted to make sure an emphasis on the present and the future as well and make sure that Jesus and God are at the forefront in everyone’s life.
“Whatever goes up and down in the course of history, whatever the great moments are or the difficult moments, our hope rests in the fact that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection mean life is given where there would be death,” he said. “And so, we have great reason to hope.”
