Blessed Junipero Serra
Founder of the California Missions
Dan Lynch Copyright 2006
In 1750 at the age of 36, Franciscan Father Junipero Serra gave up his comfortable teaching services in Spain and volunteered to serve the Franciscan missions in the New World. He left Cadiz, Spain and sailed for Vera Cruz, Mexico. From there he walked for 24 days by foot to Mexico City and dedicated his mission vocation to Our Lady of Guadalupe at her shrine. He spent nine years preaching and ministering in Mexico.
England and Russia soon began to explore the Pacific coast from the north. Spain wanted to gain a foothold from the south in California. In 1769, a Spanish expedition was organized under Gaspar de Portola. At the age of 56, Father Serra accompanied the expedition to San Diego, California, where he planted the Cross and established his first mission. From there he walked hundreds of miles while suffering from asthma and a chronically sore and painful leg. He established nine missions up and down the Pacific coast of California in 15 years between 1769 and his death in 1784. He established missions in San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, San Francisco and other places along the California coastline over a distance of 700 miles.
In April of 1770, at Monterey, he and Gaspar de Portola took possession of California for the king of Spain. In addition, Father Serra claimed Monterey for the King of Heaven. He rang a bell that he hung from a tree and shouted out to the Indians, “Come, Gentiles! Come to the Holy Church. Come and receive the faith of Jesus Christ!” He battled governors, bureaucrats and military commanders to secure a system of laws to protect the California Indians from injustices by the Spanish soldiers.
Father Serra had extraordinary administrative abilities. In four short years he settled and organized a functioning frontier through missions. He had to house and feed the residents of the missions. To do this he had to secure from the Spanish government food, grain and plant seeds, tools supplies, horses, mules and wagons, cows and other animals. It was a huge task.
The California missions were permanent structured communities where the Indians could live in peace. They were sheltered and protected from their enemies, taught the Catholic faith, techniques for farming and crafts and singing and the playing of musical instruments. Father Serra introduced agriculture and irrigation systems and created a network of roads. He helped the Indians to develop from hunters to farmers, from illiteracy to learning and from using primitive tools to the tools of the trade of carpenters and blacksmiths.
Father Serra baptized approximately 6,000 Indians about ten percent of the entire native population at the nine missions that he founded. He reported that “when we came not a Christian existed here. We regenerated all in Christ; and we have come and we are all here for their welfare and salvation. At all events, I believe it is well known that we love them.”
Father Serra died from tuberculosis on August 28, 1784 at the age of 70. He had traveled a distance of over 5000 miles by land on foot or animal. Pope John Paul II beatified him on September 25, 1988. His Feast Day is July 1. In recognition of his achievements, Father Serra’s likeness was placed in Statuary Hall in the foyer of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
For more information read Dan Lynch’s book, Saints of the States. Pope John Paul II requested this book He said we need, “A collection of short biographies of the Saints and the Beatified of America, which can shed light on and stimulate the response to the universal call to holiness in America.” (Pope John Paul II, The Church in America).
Fr. Andrew Apostoli CFR, Vice Postulator for the cause of the Sainthood of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, wrote the Foreword and said,
“This book is a wonderful contribution to appreciate the rich spiritual heritage we possess in the lives of so many heroic men and women of America. Dan Lynch traces the historical development, both secular and religious, through the centuries.” It’s the history of the faith in the United States and its saints in their historical context. Click here for ordering information.