10/16/2026
Every year, Columbus Day arrives with a mixture of celebration (most get the day off after all), controversy, and not a little bit of cultural debate. But one aspect of Christopher Columbus’s life is almost never mentioned—his faith. In all the years of school growing up, we touted Columbus as a great explorer who had it out to prove the earth was round. And that was about it. But there’s so much more to the man than the legend. For Christians, especially those formed by daily prayer and the missionary impulse of the Church, Columbus’s spiritual life is not only surprising but can even provide a model for us to follow.
For example, Columbus was far from being a nominal Christian. He was deeply devout, shaped by the medieval Catholic imagination in which Scripture, liturgy, and an idea of God’s providence acting through history were woven tightly together. His journals reveal a man who prayed constantly throughout the day, invoking the Trinity in nearly every major decision that he made. He prayed the equivalent of what Anglicans today know as the Daily Office—morning and evening prayer, psalms, canticles, and petitions offered with regularity. It is astonishing to realize that while crossing an ocean into the unknown, Columbus was praying the same rhythms of prayer that shape our own spiritual lives today.
Even more striking is Columbus’s sense of vocation. He believed his voyages were not primarily commercial or political but evangelical (you don’t read that in the public school text books!). He wrote Libro de las profecĂas (“The Book of Prophecies”), which was a remarkable work in which he gathered Scripture, Church Fathers, and medieval commentators to argue that his discoveries were part of God’s unfolding plan to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Columbus saw himself—however imperfectly—as participating in the Great Commission.
To continue reading Fr. Eric’s weekly message, go to 🔗 https://www.htcanglican.org/blog/Complicated-Saints
