The History of Father Junipero Serra Bl. Junipero Serra: Mexico City

Mar 9, 2015

Editor's note: This is part 6 of a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

THE Camino Real which connected Vera Cruz with Mexico City stretched from sea level to an altitude of 7,382 feet, through tropical country, arid plains, high plateaus, across formidable sierras, in view of volcanoes and lakes, perennial snow and abundant sunshine.

Though horses were available for the journey, Fray Junípero Serra and a companion from Andalusia decided to walk to Mexico City. In so doing, Serra identified with the friales andariegos (the walking friars) who were famous in the New World. The two friars began their journey without money or guide. Their breviaries were their sole possessions. They knew they could rely on the native Indian and Spanish hospitality which was still the unwritten law of the land.

Walking between fifteen and twenty miles each day, the missionaries set out after Mass. They took a siesta at midday when the sun was warm and the travel most weary. Their lodging and food was sought por amor de Dios (for the love of God). New geography lessons and whole chapters of nomenclature and practical Christian charity were to be learned all along the way.

During the trek, Serra's leg became swollen and he was plagued with a burning itch. He attributed the swelling to a mosquito bite, though it may have been inflicted by a chigger common to that area and other tropical regions. It was a wound that would plague him the rest of his life, at times causing critical pain.

Though he left no record of his first impressions of America as he trudged along El Camino Real, Serra certainly saw and experienced much that was new and different from Mallorca. He passed lush vegetation and semi-arid plants; incipient as well as spent volcanoes; fierce-looking lava deposits; marshes and formidable river torrents; magnificent, towering mountains; strange-looking people in ponchos and guaraches; primitive, lonely shacks and terrible roads. And, socially, he was in another world. Though it had the unmistakable Spanish impress upon it, it was primarily Indian territory. It was New Spain where nature took on magnitude.

With new vision and high hopes, Fray Junípero Serra came hobbling painfully into Mexico City, his new home. He arrived at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the religious hearth of Mexico, on the evening of December 31st and there he remained overnight with prayers of gratitude to the Blessed Mother.

Serra arrived at San Fernando College on New Year's Day. He had traveled from Bon Any in Mallorca to the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico, the chain of his travels linked two sacred hills dedicated to the Madonna he loved and revered. He was now six thousand miles from home. San Fernando was one of the leading apostolic colleges in the New World whose purpose was the formation of able missionaries. It was an independent, specialized institution within the framework of the Franciscan Order where friars were trained for the apostolate of the home missions and the unconverted Indian field.

Here, in a sense, it was journey's end for Serra. In another sense, his road of life was just beginning.