The city would do only slightly better if there were a relic in the Cathedral.
Perhaps if deep under the altar there was a splinter from the cross, perhaps the splinter that a Spanish nobleman entrusted to his lover Emiliana before his departure for the Indies. The relic was all she had of him when she followed a dozen years later, survived a shipwreck off Florida, and spent the rest of her days in St. Augustine, in a convent, wondering as to the fate of her lover. If the relic had been passed to the parish upon the old nun’s death and enshrined beneath the altar of the tiny chapel and remained there as the church grew up around it into the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine to be revered as the only relic of the crucifix to be transported to the New World, as a symbol of love and commitment between a man and a woman and a woman and her god, perhaps if that had happened, the tourists would be here every day year round and not just on three day weekends and major holidays.
But there are no relics beneath the Cathedral’s altar, and the only grail these pilgrims seek is the illusive rich-vacation-moment with all the family.
(Originally published on Bayfrontwatcher on December 27, 2006)