Pic(k) of the Week: Cross & statue

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

A patinated bronze statue of a Catholic missionary appears to beseech heavenward, positioned before a nearly 200-foot-tall 'Great Cross,' whose silvery stainless steel gleams golden in late-afternoon sun.

Mission Nombre de Dios: St. Augustine, Florida, USA.
3 September 2025.

About the mission:

Mission Nombre de Dios (Name of God) is a Catholic mission founded in 1587 in St. Augustine, Florida, on the west side of Matanzas Bay. It is likely the oldest extant mission in the continental United States. The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, the oldest shrine in that region, is located on the mission grounds.

The mission traces its origins to September 8, 1565, when Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed with a band of settlers, including a Catholic chaplain, Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales. The mission would serve the colonists and nearby villages of the Mocama, a Native American tribe.

The 'Great Cross' was dedicated in October 1966 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the mission's founding. It is made of stainless steel and towers 208 feet above the Matanzas marshes. An eleven-foot-tall bronze statue of Father López stands in front, created in 1958 by Ivan Meštrović (1883-1962), a Croatian sculptor (then dean of Art at Notre Dame University, in South Bend, Indiana, USA).

— National Park Service (pdf)
— Wikipedia.

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Donald Byrd: Cristo Redentor

Album: A New Perspective (Label: Blue Note)
Released 1964; recorded 1963.

-----more-----

• Musicians:
  • Donald Byrd – trumpet, leader
  • Hank Mobley – tenor saxophone
  • Herbie Hancock – piano
  • Kenny Burrell – guitar
  • Donald Best – vibraphone, vocals
  • Butch Warren – bass
  • Lex Humphries – drums
  • Duke Pearson – arranger, composer (Cristo Redentor)
  • Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson – choir direction
  • Choir – Four men (two basses, two tenors), four women (two altos, two sopranos)
  
  
• On 13 September 2025, Flickr's editors selected this image for inclusion in Flickr's daily Explore feature (236th out of 500 chosen).


• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays.
• Photo 38 of 52, for year 2025. See a larger, hi-res version on Flickr: here.


• Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.
• Lens: Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R
• Settings: 28 mm; 1/640 second; ISO 400; ƒ/5.6


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