Junípero Serra

          Miguel Josep Serra i Ferrer was born in Petra, Spain, in 1713 on the island of Majorca.  He was the third of five children of peasant farmers.  As a young boy he worked on farms with his parents, raising crops and tending to cattle.  But from an early age he showed interest in religious life, specifically the Franciscan friary near his family’s home.  He attended the friar-run school where he did well academically and enjoyed participating in their liturgical chant.  At 16, Miguel started attending a Franciscan school in the capital of Majorca. A year after that, he entered the novitiate of the Friars Minor, a reform movement within the Franciscan order. He took Junípero as his religious name, in honor of one the first Franciscans and friends of St. Francis of Assisi. 

          After his ordination in 1737, Junípero served as a professor of philosophy at the monastery of San Francisco and Lullian University. He was regarded as a brilliant academic. During this time he also would travel home to help care for his parents, who had separated, and his siblings, especially when they became ill due to droughts and plagues that were afflicting the island. But the missionary call tugged at Junípero's heart. He sought and received permission to join the foreign missions in Spain's colonies in the America's, foregoing a likely prestigious and comfortable career as an academic. He also knew it likely meant never seeing his parents again. He asked a colleague to take them a letter explaining to them his decision to pursue God's will and to console them over the departure of their only son.

         Junípero Serra arrived in Vera Cruz, Mexico, on December 8, 1749.  Keeping to Franciscan custom, he insisted on walking the journey to Mexico City instead of riding a horse. It was a difficult journey and wounds he suffered as a result bothered him for the rest of his life.  His first assignment was to the missions in the Sierra Gorda region of North-Central Mexico, where Junípero would spend 9 years among the Pame people, catechizing and helping implement farming practices and develop products for trading centers.  He stood up to Spanish soldiers that attempted to seize the lands near the mission that the Pames farmed and fought for the Pames to be fairly paid for any labor they provided.  After Sierra Gorda, Junípero was sent to the villages and mining camps on the Mexican coast.  Over the next 8 years, he traveled by foot over 6,000 miles, teaching and preaching.

          In 1767, King Charles III of Spain expelled the Jesuits from the Spanish colonies.  This left a number of missions in the Baja California peninsula unstaffed.  The Franciscans filled the void.  Father Serra became the Superior of these missions, heading up a group of 15 Franciscan friars.  In 1769, Father Serra joined the expedition of the Spanish governor Gaspar de Portolá, which would bring Junípero into what is now known as the State of California.  After a difficult journey by land and water, he reached San Diego on June 27, 1769 and founded its mission.  From there, he would travel to Monterey Bay and establish the Mission San Carlos Borromeo.  It would later be moved to a new location by the Carmel River in 1771 and is now known at The Carmel Mission.  The Carmel Mission would become the headquarters for Junípero’s efforts throughout California.  Father Serra would go on to found seven more missions during his lifetime.  Building and ministering at these missions required Father Serra to travel thousands of miles by foot along the California coast on a path known as El Camino Real.  It is said he baptized and confirmed thousands.   

          Junípero often found himself in conflict with the leaders of the Spanish army and settlements. The Spanish authorities tried to limit the Franciscan’s authority at the missions to only spiritual matters, rather than more of the everyday life at the missions. When soldiers of then governor Pedro Fages abused Native Americans in the missions, Father Serra protested. When Fages refused to act, he traveled to Mexico City and sought the governor’s removal from office. He presented the Spanish viceroy with a 32-point document explaining his charges against Fages, but also that the Native Americans in the missions were children of God deserving protection of the Spanish monarchy. The viceroy approved 30 of Father Serra’s arguments and removed Fages from office (although whether his replacement was any better can be debated).

          Father Serra died on August 28, 1784, at The Carmel Mission, on the 35th anniversary of his departure from Spain to be a missionary in America.  He was 70 years old.

          Saint Junípero Serra is considered the Apostle of California and the state’s patron saint.  The Shrine of Saint Junípero Serra is located within the Carmel Mission Basilica in Carmel, California and includes Serra’s tomb.  There is also a museum on the mission’s grounds that contains other relics and exhibits on the life of Saint Junípero Serra.