St. Junipero Serra
Posted on September 2, 2019 by admin No comments
Born: Miguel José Serra Ferrer November 24, 1713 Petra, Majorca, Spain
Died: August 28, 1784 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, Las Californias, New Spain, Spanish Empire (modern day Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, U.S.)
Beatified: September 25, 1988, Saint Peter’s Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: September 23, 2015, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Francis
Major shrine: Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, United States
Patronage: Vocations, Hispanic Americans, California
Saint Junípero Serra y Ferrer, O.F.M., (November 24, 1713 – August 28, 1784) was a Roman Catholic Spanish priest and friar of the Franciscan Order who founded a mission in Baja California and the first nine of 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco, in what was then Alta California in the Province of Las Californias, New Spain. Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988, in the Vatican City. Pope Francis canonised him on September 23, 2015, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., during his first visit to the United States. His missionary efforts earned him the title of Apostle of California.
Early life
Serra (born Miguel José Serra Ferrer, November 24, 1713 – August 28, 1784) was born in the village of Petra on the island of Majorca (Mallorca) off the Mediterranean coast of Spain. A few hours after birth, he was baptized in the village church. His baptismal name was Miquel Josep Serra. His father Antonio Nadal Serra and mother Margarita Rosa Ferrer were married in 1707.
By age seven, Miquel was working the fields with his parents, helping cultivate wheat and beans, and tending the cattle. But he showed a special interest in visiting the local Franciscan friary at the church of San Bernardino within a block of the Serra family house. Attending the friars’ primary school at the church, Miquel learned reading, writing, mathematics, Latin, religion and liturgical song, especially Gregorian chant. Gifted with a good voice, he eagerly took to vocal music. The friars sometimes let him join the community choir and sing at special church feasts. Miquel and his father Antonio often visited the friary for friendly chats with the Franciscans.
At age 16, Miquel’s parents enrolled him in a Franciscan school in the capital city, Palma de Majorca, where he studied philosophy. A year later, he became a novice in the Franciscan order.
On September 14, 1730, some two months before his 17th birthday, Serra entered the Franciscan Order at Palma, specifically, the Alcantarine branch of the Friars Minor, a reform movement in the Order. The slight and frail Serra now embarked on his novitiate period, a rigorous year of preparation to become a full member of the Franciscan Order. He was given the religious name of Junípero in honor of Brother Juniper, who had been among the first Franciscans and a companion of Saint Francis.[12] The young Junípero, along with his fellow novices, vowed to scorn property and comfort, and to remain celibate. He still had seven years to go to become an ordained Catholic priest. He immersed himself in rigorous studies of logic, metaphysics, cosmology, and theology.
The daily routine at the friary followed a rigid schedule: prayers, meditation, choir singing, physical chores, spiritual readings, and instruction. The friars would wake up every midnight for another round of chants. Serra’s superiors discouraged letters and visitors. In his free time, he avidly read stories about Franciscan friars roaming the provinces of Spain and around the world to win new souls for the church, often suffering martyrdom in the process. He followed the news of famous missionaries winning beatification and sainthood.
In 1737, Serra became a priest, and three years later earned an ecclesiastical license to teach philosophy at the Convento de San Francisco. His philosophy course, including over 60 students, lasted three years. Among his students were fellow future missionaries Francisco Palóu and Juan Crespí. When the course ended in 1743, Serra told his students: “I desire nothing more from you than this, that when the news of my death shall have reached your ears, I ask you to say for the benefit of my soul: ‘May he rest in peace.’ Nor shall I omit to do the same for you so that all of us will attain the goal for which we have been created.”
Serra was considered intellectually brilliant by his peers. He received a doctorate in theology from the Lullian College (founded in the 14th century by Ramon Lull for the training of Franciscan missionaries) in Palma de Majorca, where he also occupied the Duns Scotus chair of philosophy until he joined the missionary College of San Fernando de Mexico in 1749.
During Serra’s last five years on the island of Majorca, drought and plague afflicted his home village of Petra. Serra sometimes went home from Palma for brief visits to his parents—now separated—and gave them some financial support. On one occasion he was called home to anoint his seriously ill father with the last rites. In one of his final visits to Petra, Serra found his younger sister Juana María near death.
In 1748, Serra and Palóu confided to each other their desire to become missionaries. Serra, now 35, was assured a prestigious career as priest and scholar if he stayed in Majorca; but he set his sights firmly on pagan lands. Applying to the colonial bureaucracy in Madrid, Serra requested that both he and Palóu embark on a foreign mission. After weathering some administrative obstacles, they received permission and set sail for Cádiz, the port of departure for Spain’s colonies in the Americas.
While waiting to set sail, Serra wrote a long letter to a colleague back in Majorca, urging him to console Serra’s parents—now in their 70’s—over their only son’s pending departure. “They [my parents] will learn to see how sweet is His yoke,” Serra wrote, “and that He will change for them the sorrow they may now experience into great happiness. Now is not the time to muse or fret over the happenings of life but rather to be conformed entirely to the will of God, striving to prepare themselves for that happy death which of all the things of life is our principal concern.” Serra asked his colleague to read this letter to his parents, who had never attended school.
Ministry in the America
In 1749, Serra and the Franciscan missionary team landed in Veracruz, on the Gulf coast of New Spain (now Mexico). To get from Veracruz to Mexico City, Serra and his Franciscan companions took the Camino Real (English: royal path), a rough road stretching from sea level through tropical forests, dry plains, high plateaus and volcanic sierra mountains to an altitude of 7400 feet (2250 meters). Royal officials provided horses for the 20 Franciscan friars to ride up the Camino Real. All accepted the offer, except for Serra and one companion, a friar from Andalusia. Strictly following the rule of his patron saint Francis of Assisi that friars “must not ride on horseback unless compelled by manifest necessity or infirmity,” Serra insisted on walking to Mexico City. He and his fellow friar set out on the Camino Real with no money or guide, carrying only their breviaries. They trusted in Providence and the hospitality of local people along the way.
During the trek Serra’s left foot swelled up, and a burning itch tormented him. Arriving at a farm at day’s end, he could hardly stand. He attributed the swelling to a mosquito bite. His discomfort caused him to stay over at the farm another night, during which he scratched his foot and leg to excess, desperately trying to relieve the itch. The next morning his leg was raw and bleeding. This wound plagued Serra for the rest of his life.
Hobbling into Mexico City, Serra joined up with his fellow friars at the College of San Fernando de Mexico, a specialized training center and regional headquarters for Franciscan missionaries. Serra requested that he do his novitiate year again—despite his academic prestige, and the fact that the college’s novices were far younger men. Though his request was declined, Serra insisted on living as a novice at San Fernando: “This learned university professor … would often eat more sparingly in order to replace the student whose turn it was to read to the community. Or he would humbly carry trays and wait on tables with the lay brothers.”
Besides the routine of prayers, hymns and meditations, daily life at the secluded college included classes on the languages of Mexico’s native peoples, mission administration and theology. Before completing his required year of training, Serra volunteered for a mission in the rugged Sierra Gorda, to help replace friars who had recently died there. He was accepted as mission superior. His fellow volunteer, Friar Francisco Palóu, became Serra’s assistant in his first mission.
Mission in the Sierra Gorda, Mexico
The Sierra Gorda Indian missions, some 90 miles north of Santiago de Querétaro, were nestled in a vast region of jagged mountains, home of the Pame people and a scattering of Spanish colonists. The Pames—who centuries earlier had built a civilization with temples, idols and priests—lived mainly by gathering and hunting, but also pursued agriculture. Many groups among them, adopting mobile guerrilla tactics, had eluded conquest by the Spanish military.
Serra and Palóu, arriving at the village of Jalpan, found the mission in disarray: The parishioners, numbering fewer than a thousand, were attending neither confession nor Mass. The two missionaries set about learning the Pame language from a Mexican who had lived among the Pames. But the claim by Palóu that Serra translated the catechism into the Pame language is questionable, as Serra himself later admitted he had great difficulties learning indigenous languages.
Serra involved Pames parishioners in the ritual reenactment of Jesus’ forced death march. Erecting 14 stations, Serra led the procession himself, carrying an extremely heavy cross. At each station, the procession paused for a prayer, and at the end Serra sermonized on the sufferings and death of Jesus. On Holy Thursday, 12 Pames elders reenacted the roles of the apostles. Serra, in the role of Jesus, washed their feet and then, after the service, dined with them.
Serra also tackled the practical side of mission administration. Working with the college of San Fernando, he had cattle, goats, sheep, and farming tools brought to the Sierra Gorda mission. Palóu supervised the farm labor of men of the mission; the women learned spinning, sewing and knitting. Their products were collected and rationed to the mission residents, according to personal needs. Christian Pames sold their surplus products in nearby trading centers, under the friars’ supervision to protect them from cheaters. Pames who adapted successfully to mission life received their own parcels of land to raise corn, beans and pumpkins, and sometimes received oxen and seeds as well.
Within two years, Serra had made inroads against the Pames’ traditional belief system. On his 1752 visit from the Sierra Gorda mission to the college of San Fernando in Mexico City, Serra joyfully carried a goddess statue presented to him by Christian Pames. The statue, showing the face of Cachum, mother of the sun, had been erected on a hilltop shrine where some Pame chiefs lay buried.
Back in the Sierra Gorda, Serra faced a conflict between Spanish soldiers, settlers, and mission natives or “Indians”. Following a Spanish military victory over the Pames in 1743, Spanish authorities had sent not only Franciscan missionaries, but also Spanish/Mexican soldiers and their families into the Sierra Gorda. The soldiers had the job of pursuing runaway mission Indians and securing the region for the Spanish crown. But the soldiers’ land claims clashed with mission lands that Christian Pames were working.
Some of the soldiers’ families tried to establish a town, and the officer in charge of their deployment approved their plan. The Pames objected, threatening to defend their lands by force if necessary. Soldiers and settlers let their cattle graze on Christian Pames’ farmlands and bullied Pames into working for them. Serra and the College of San Fernando sided with the Pames—citing the Laws of the Indies, which banned colonial settlements in mission territories.
The viceroy, Spain’s highest official in Mexico, suspended the intrusive colony. But the townspeople protested and stayed put. The government set up commissions and looked into alternative sites for the colony. It ordered the settlers to keep their cattle out of the Pames’ fields, and to pay the Pames fairly for their labor (with the friars supervising payment). After a protracted legal struggle, the settlers moved out, and in 1755 the Pames and friars reclaimed their land.
Crowning his Sierra Gorda mission, Serra oversaw the construction of a splendid church in Jalpan. Gathering masons, carpenters, and other skilled craftsmen from Mexico City, Serra employed Christian Pames in seasonal construction work over the course of seven years to complete the church. Serra pitched in himself, carrying wooden beams and applying mortar between the stones forming the church walls.
Canonization
Despite these concerns, thousands of Native Americans in California maintain their Catholic faith, and some supported efforts to canonize Serra. James Nieblas – the first Native American priest to be ordained from the Juañeno Acjachemen Nation, a tribe evangelized by Serra – was chosen to meet with Pope Francis during his visit to Washington D.C. Nieblas, a longtime supporter of Serra’s canonization, stated during a 1986 interview with the Los Angeles Times that “Father Serra brought our people to this day. I think Serra would be proud … canonization has the full support and backing of the Juaneno people.”
Members of other tribes associated with the mission system also expressed support for Serra’s canonization. “Our people were directly involved with the Carmel Mission,” said Tony Cerda, tribal chief of the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel tribe. “We support the canonization. … The mission lands were our ancestral homes. Our ancestors are buried at the mission.”
On the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel Tribe’s official website, the community released a bilingual statement in support of Serra’s canonization shortly after a visit between Chief Cerda and Pope Francis, stating:
Saint Junipero Serra Baptized and Married our ancestors Simon Francisco (Indian name “Chanjay”) and Magdalena Francisca on April 1, 1775 at Mission San Carlos De Borromeo Del Rio Carmelo … We wholeheartedly Support the canonization of Saint Junipero Serra because he protected our people and supported their full human rights against the politicians and the military with total disregard for his own life and safety.
Two members of California’s Ohlone Tribe played roles in the canonization Mass by placing a relic of Serra’s near the altar and reading a scripture in Chochenyo, a native language. One of the participants, Andrew Galvan, a member of the Ohlone Tribe and curator of Mission Dolores in San Francisco, stated prior to the ceremony that the canonization “will be the culmination of a life’s work for me. … It will be a ceremonial opening of the door that will ‘let us Indians in,’ a moment I honestly didn’t think I would live to see.”
Ruben Mendoza, an archeologist of Mexican Mestizo and Native Yaqui descent who has extensively excavated missions in California, stated during a March 2015 interview with the Los Angeles Times that “Serra endured great hardships to evangelize Native Californians. In the process, he orchestrated the development of a chain of missions that helped give birth to modern California. … When I don’t go along with the idea that the missions were concentration camps and that the Spanish brutalized every Indian they encountered, I’m seen as an adversary.”
In July 2015, Mendoza testified at a hearing on a proposal to remove a statue of Junipero Serra from the U.S. Capitol. In his remarks, he stated, “What greater symbol of empowerment than that offered by Fray Junípero Serra himself can we offer our youth? I ask that this legislative body seriously reconsider this politicized effort to minimize and erase one of the most substantive Hispanic and Latino contributions to our nation’s history.”
The grave of Saint Junípero Serra in Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo.
Biographer Gregory Orfalea wrote of Serra: “I see his devotion to Native Californians as heartfelt, plain-spoken and borne out by continuous example.”
Death and burial
During the remaining three years of his life, he once more visited the missions from San Diego to San Francisco, traveling more than 600 miles in the process, to confirm all who had been baptized. He suffered intensely from his crippled leg and from his chest, yet he would use no remedies. He confirmed 5,309 people, who, with but few exceptions, were California Indian neophytes converted during the fourteen years from 1770.
On August 28, 1784, at the age of 70, Junípero Serra died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo from tuberculosis. He is buried there under the sanctuary. Following Serra’s death, leadership of the Franciscan missionary effort in Alta California passed to Fermín Lasuén.
Veneration
Junípero Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988. The pope spoke before a crowd of 20,000 in a beatification ceremony for six; according to the pope’s address in English, “He sowed the seeds of Christian faith amid the momentous changes wrought by the arrival of European settlers in the New World. It was a field of missionary endeavor that required patience, perseverance, and humility, as well as vision and courage.”
During Serra’s beatification, questions were raised about how Indians were treated while Serra was in charge. The question of Franciscan treatment of Indians first arose in 1783. The famous historian of missions Herbert Eugene Bolton gave evidence favorable to the case in 1948, and the testimony of five other historians was solicited in 1986.
Serra was canonized by Pope Francis on September 23, 2015, as a part of the pope’s first visit to the United States, the first canonization to take place on American soil. During a speech at the Pontifical North American College in Rome on May 2, 2015, Pope Francis stated that “Friar Junípero … was one of the founding fathers of the United States, a saintly example of the Church’s universality and special patron of the Hispanic people of the country.” Junipero Serra is the second native saint of the Balearic Islands after St. Catherine of Palma. He is also included among the Saints of the United States.
Serra’s feast day is celebrated on July 1 in the United States and on August 26 in Mexico. He is considered to be the patron saint of California, Hispanic Americans, and religious vocations.
The Mission in Carmel, California, containing Serra’s remains has continued as a place of public veneration. The burial location of Serra is southeast of the altar and is marked with an inscription in the floor of the sanctuary. Other relics are remnants of the wood from Serra’s coffin on display next to the sanctuary, and personal items belonging to Serra on display in the mission museums. A bronze and marble sarcophagus depicting Serra’s life was completed in 1924 by the sculptor Jo Mora, but Serra’s remains have never been transferred to that sarcophagus.