The History of Father Junipero Serra Bl. Junipero Serra: Time Marches On

Apr 13, 2015

Editor's note: This is part 16 in a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

LIKE most great leaders, Fray Junípero Serra was impatient. He once observed that "I do not say that everything must be done in one day but I do think that the ship should sail when the wind is favorable."

Progress at Monterey must have been excruciatingly slow by Serra's standards. It was only on December 26, 1770 that the Presidente performed his first baptism there. By the following May, twenty Indians had been received into the Church, but it was a long process catechizing them.

The arrival of ten additional friars in March of the following year augured well for it meant that the founding of new missions would not be long delayed. On July 8th, for example, Serra, two of his fellow friars, seven soldiers, three sailors and a few Indians from peninsular California left Monterey for the Valley of the Bears in the Sierra de Santa Lucia. Studded with oaks, the valley had a river running through it that was filled with water even during July. Serra chose a spot upon which the Mission of San Antonio de Padua should be temporarily founded - leaving the exact locale of the mission's future site to circumstances.

The bells were hung from an oak and an improvised altar was set up in an enramada on the Feast of Saint Bonaventure. In the beautiful sun-warmed valley of the oaks, Serra was seized with rapturous enthusiasm. He began to ring the bells and to them added the evangel of his clarion voice: "Come, you pagans; come to the Holy Church; come, come to receive the Faith of Jesus Christ!"

For the next eight days the soldiers worked at building the necessary shelters for themselves and the missionaries and on the following Sunday Mass was offered for the first time in the improvised chapel which Serra had determined upon as the correct site for the mission.

The account of Serra's enthusiasm at the establishment of the mission is in accord with his fervid character and his missionary zeal. Given the valley's picturesque setting and the long-enforced idleness at Monterey, no doubt he gave full vent to his pent-up emotions. Returning to Monterey, Serra set about transferring San Carlos Borromeo from the presidio to the banks of the Carmel River, with its view of the beautiful bay and rocky Point Lobos. On August 24th, he blessed the cross and sang the first Mass on the site.

Frays Pedro Benito Cambon and Angel Somera were appointed by Serra to establish the mission named for San Gabriel where the Montebello hills enclose the southern boundary of the San Miguel Valley. That site too was well chosen. There was plentiful water for irrigation and nearby, to the east, were the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers. There was a dense oak forest to the northwest, which supplied abundant acorns for the Indians and wood for the mission.

The initial buildings at San Gabriel were completed in the shortest possible time. Unhappily, it was not long before dark shadows fell over San Gabriel. An altercation between the soldiers and the Indians occurred during which the local chief was killed. That unfortunate event, coupled with the immoral conduct of several soldiers, caused great anxiety for Serra and the other missionaries. How any conversions at San Gabriel were effected under such circumstances is little short of miraculous.

Gradually, with the transferal of the more unsavory soldiers, the moral climate improved and, as Serra reported to the Viceroy, "the padres began to breathe easier after their long period of affliction."