May - St. Augustine Catholic

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In Peril on the Sea
by Michael Gannon, Ph.D.
Florida’s first pastor-to-be, Father
Francisco López de Mendoza, sailed
here from Spain in the summer of
1565 on the nineteen-ship fleet of
Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
Shortly after a replenishment stop
at the Canary Islands, the ships
encountered storms that broke up
the fleet’s disciplined columns, and
Father López found that only four
other vessels were left in formation
with the ship on which he was a
passenger.
On the morning of July 20
another violent wind arose that,
by two o’clock in the afternoon,
became what Father López called
“the most frightful hurricane one could
imagine.” In a relación, or chronicle, of
those events he wrote: “The sea, which
rose to the very clouds, seemed about
to swallow us up alive, and such was the
fear and apprehension of the pilot and
other sailors, that I pushed myself hard in
exhorting my brethren and companions
to repentance. I represented to them the
Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and
with so much success that I passed the
night in confessing them.”
When daylight came the next day, the
priest observed that towering waves
were breaking over his ship’s prow
and gunwales. In that extremity the
captain ordered that all objects of weight
– millstones, cables, reserve rigging, even
the cooking apparatus and many barrels
of water – be jettisoned overside. But,
with the ship thus lightened, it appeared
that capsizing was still a possibility, and the
captain ordered that the private chests of
the soldier passengers also be jettisoned.
Alarmed that all they owned in this
world was about to be consigned to the
briny deep, the soldiers begged Father
López to intercede on their behalf. The
priest fell on his knees before the captain
and implored him to spare the chests. “I
from the archives
reminded him that we ought to trust
to the great mercy of Our Lord,” Father
López wrote, “and, like a true Christian, he
showed confidence in God and rescinded
the order.”
Though the storm continued unabated,
Father López’s ship remained just barely
afloat. “During that whole night,” Father
López wrote, “I preached to the crew and
exhorted them to maintain their faith in
God.” Finally, after three days and nights
of peril, “Our Lord deigned to have
compassion and mercy on us, and calmed
the fury of the winds and waves.”
On Monday, August 27, Father López’s
battered ship with four others approached
the Florida shoreline. When darkness fell,
Father López wrote: “God showed to us a
miracle from heaven. About nine o’clock
in the evening, a comet appeared, which
showed itself directly above us, a little
eastward, giving so much light that it might
be taken for the sun, and its brightness
lasted long enough to repeat two Credos
[the Apostles’ Creed].”
They were just off Cape Canaveral.
Anyone who, nearly four and a half
centuries later, has watched a night launch
of a rocket from Cape Canaveral can
relate to Father López’s experience.
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St. Augustine Catholic May 2007