The History of Father Junipero Serra Bl. Junipero Serra: Word reaches the homefront

Apr 9, 2015

Editor's note: This is part 15 in a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

IN a little over a year, the Spanish realm along the shores of the Pacific had been extended over eight hundred miles, from San Fernando de Velicatá to Monterey, and three missions and two presidios had been established in the area. When news of the event reached Mexico City, everyone was jubilant. The church of the city rang their bells and the massed clangor sounded like Rome after a canonization. San Fernando, with greater claim than all the others, joined in the common jubilee, for two of her sons, Frays Junípero Serra and Juan Crespi, had planted the cross over two thousand miles away.

The excited populace soon learned the significance of it all. A Solemn Mass of thanksgiving was offered in the Metropolitan Cathedral, with both the Visitor General and Viceroy in attendance. In his official statement, the Viceroy did not overlook Fray Junípero Serra's part in the dramatic occurrence, noting that the "exemplary and zealous missionary" had related the events surrounding the Christian penetration of Alta California.

On October 25, 1770, thirty additional missionaries (twenty for Baja and ten for Alta California) left the Apostolic College of San Fernando. The new guardian at the college was Fray Rafael Verger and it was he who would act as Serra's superior in those formative years. Verger appreciated that he had an excellent field commander in Alta California. Concerning Serra, he wrote that the Presidente "was held in high esteem because of his learning and remarkable talents," he had come to the New World to "teach the benighted pagans of this vast kingdom the catechism and Christian doctrine."

Verger and Serra were a naturally compatible unit. The two sons of Mallorcan farmers were plowing for God and Spain but both often found the ground stubborn and unreceptive.

It must be understood that the spiritual and temporal conquest of California was controlled by an interlocking directorate of Church and state. The king, the Council of the Indies, the Board of Trade, the viceroy, military governor, local presidio commander, the Commissary General of the Indies, the guardian at the Apostolic College of San Fernando all jostled with the Presidente in furthering the interests of both Church and state.

The union was intimate in theory and practice. The organization was tightly knit on the highest level in Spain, on the intermediate level in Mexico and on the lower level in California. Little deviation from set rules was allowed and little individual enterprise was permitted.
All these officials worked hand-in-hand, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes at variance. Misunderstandings arose from variant interpretations of the law without the contestants being able to consult higher authority readily. Disputes came when clashing personalities insisted on their rights, feigned or real.

The poor communications of the age and the tremendous distances involved stagger our imagination today. It took nearly a year, for example, to ask a question and receive an answer. The whole scheme worked out simply because hardy and zealous men in uniform and habit, real frontiersmen and pioneers, serving God and the king, striving to be good Christians and remaining very human in many things, bearing arms and shouldering the Cross, were willing to undergo privations and hardships to attain their goal.