The month of July is for US Citizens a time to celebrate that we became an Independent nation, for us Catholic Americans is also a time to remember that in 1776, another part of the future of the United Stated was being forged in California, writes Susana Chapa, pictured above, Director of Hispanic Ministry for the Diocese of Lansing upon the Feast of Saint Junipero Serra, July 1.
It was in November 1st, 1776 that the Spanish Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra founded the Mission field San Juan Capistrano in Orange County in California. Saint Junipero Serra founded 9 missions total, San Juan Capistrano was the seventh.
Today is his Feast Day, and 250 years after the Independence of our nation and after he founded San Juan Capistrano, we are witnesses of the abundant fruits that his desire to convert native peoples in the New World has brought to the Catholic Church. Approximately 26 to 30% of the population in the state of California is Catholic today.
Before going to California, San Junípero arrived by ship on December 7th, 1749 to México. He and his companions walked to Mexico City; he begun his missionary work there until Charles III of Spain ordered an expedition to prevent a Russian invasion south from Alaska. That is how he arrived to present day Monterrey, California where he founded the first mission in San Diego in 1769.
From the Spanish point of view, the Native Americans in the area were living a nonhuman life, so San Junipero and other friars became their legal guardians. Many Native Americans begun to convert, were baptized and kept at the missions, so they would not go back to their pagan traditions. Junípero baptized 6,000 people and confirmed 5,000.
Saint Junipero encountered many dangers, even the danger of death from the no Christian native people; but that did not stop him. His zeal for the salvation of souls was strengthened by prayer. He often prayed from midnight to dawn.
He brought the native Americans not only a better standard of living, but most importantly he brought them the gift of faith and the grace that transforms the human soul through the sacraments. In giving this goodness to their lives, he won their love.
Saint Junipero Serra was born into a wealthy Spanish family, he received a good education, he taught philosophy and theology at the University of Padua in Italy for 12 years and yet he gave up his wealth, his comfort, his academic standing, everything, in order to venture to a faraway land where he would face great risk and great discomfort and all to bring the greatest gift, the greatest good imaginable, Jesus Christ, to people who did not yet know the Good Lord.
As a Franciscan he embraced the most radical form of poverty which saw him, upon arrival in the New World, choose to walk on foot from the Port of Veracruz to Mexico City – that’s 250 miles! He then founded several missions in Mexico, the first being in Jalpa in the State of Queretaro, where my mom and older brother live. It was also there that Saint Junipero met with native people who practiced witchcraft. His kindness, piety and learning, however, led those people peaceably embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To this day, he is still very beloved by the vast majority of the people in that part of Mexico.
San Junipero is buried at Mission San Carlo Borromeo, Carmel, and was beatified in 1988. Pope Francis canonized in in Washington, D.C. on September 23, 2015.
Saint Juniperp Serra, pray for us!
