The History of Father Junipero Serra Bl. Junipero Serra: The Professional Years

Feb 26, 2015

Editor's note: This is part 3 of a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

DURING the eighteen years that Fray Junípero Serra lived, worked and prayed at the Convento de San Francisco, Palma de Mallorca, books and study dominated the major portion of his time. Late in 1731, Serra received tonsure and the minor orders, the first steps to ordination. Then came the copious classes in theology required for reception of the ministerial priesthood.

Serra was ordained deacon on Saint Patrick's Day, 1736, but the exact date of his advancement to priesthood is unrecorded. His biographer suggests that the event took place just prior to Christmas, 1737, when Serra had reached the prescribed canonical age.

Aware of his pedagogical talents, Serra's superiors singled him out to be a professor within the Seraphic Order. After passing the necessary examinations, Fray Junípero Serra was awarded the coveted title "lector of philosophy." Serra began his professorial career early in 1740.

Fortunately, one of his students kept a careful written transcript of Serra's lectures which is still extant. It numbered no fewer than 808 pages!
According to the transcription, Serra concluded the three year course with personal note of deep spiritual import:

I desire nothing more of you than this that when the news of my death shall have reached your ears, I ask that you say for the benefit of my soul "May he rest in peace," and I shall not fail to do the same for you so that all of us will attain that goal for which we have been created. Amen and farewell. ... I am no longer your professor but your most humble servant.

In 1743, a year after receiving his doctorate, Serra was named to the Chair of Scotistic Theology at the Lullian University. During his tenure in that prestigious assignment, Fray Junípero Serra took preaching appointments in various parts of Mallorca.

Serra was as accomplished at preaching as he was at teaching. Sprung from the country soil himself, he never lost the ability to touch his simple hearers. Generally, he preached in the Mallorcan dialect, which was akin to Catalan. His easy eloquence, resonant voice and fiery earnestness won Serra many listeners in academic circles too. His biographer recalled one panegyric delivered on January 25, 1749:

Everyone was full of admiration. With my own ears I heard one of his listeners, a professor and brilliant preacher who was himself a little jealous ... exclaiming, "There is a sermon that deserves to be printed in letters of gold."

In June of 1743, Serra was singularly honored by being invited to preach on the Feast of Corpus Christi in Palma's historic cathedral. That event was traditionally among the more memorable of local celebrations and only the most outstanding speakers were asked to participate. By all the reasonable standards, Fray Junípero Serra, now in his early thirties, had achieved all any friar could ever have anticipated. And there was promise of future advance¬ment in the ranks of his own Order. Seemingly none of that interested him.

In the midst of this well-ordered and useful existence, Fray Junípero Serra reviewed his life and thought about the years ahead. He could not have known then that the Californias figured into his future.