| Serra was born of lowly
people in the island of Majorca, and while he was yet a
little child sang as chorister in the convent of San
Bernardino. He was but sixteen when he entered the
Franciscan Order, and before he was eighteen he had taken
the final vows. This was in the year 1730. His baptismal
name, Michael Joseph, he laid aside on becoming a monk,
and took the name of Junipero, after that quaintest and
drollest of all Saint Francis's first companions; him of
whom the saint said jocosely, "Would that I had a
whole forest of such Junipers!"
At last, in 1749,
there assembled in Cadiz a great body of missionaries,
destined chiefly for Mexico;
For nineteen years after their arrival in Mexico,
Father Junipero and his three friends were kept at work
there, under the control of the College of San Fernando,
in founding missions and preaching. On the suppression of
the Jesuit Order, in 1767, and its consequent expulsion
from all the Spanish dominions, it was decided to send a
band of Franciscans to California, to take charge of the
Jesuit missions there. These were all in Lower
California, no attempt at settlement having been yet made
in Upper California. Serra was put in charge of it, and
was appointed president of all the California missions.
The history of the next fifteen years is a history of
struggle, hardship, and heroic achievement. The
indefatigable Serra was the mainspring and support of it
all. There seemed no limit to his endurance, no bound to
his desires; nothing daunted his courage or chilled his
faith. When, in the sixth year after the founding of the
San Diego Mission, it was attacked by hostile Indians,
one of the fathers being most cruelly murdered, and the
buildings burned to the ground, Father Junipero
exclaimed, "Thank God! The seed of the Gospel is now
watered by the blood of a martyr; that mission is
henceforth established;" and in a few months he was
on the spot, with money and materials, ready for
rebuilding; pressing sailors, neophytes, soldiers, into
the service; working with his own hands, also, spite of
the fears and protestations of all, and only desisting on
positive orders from the military commander. He
journeyed, frequently on foot, back and forth through the
country, founding a new mission whenever, by his urgent
letters to the College of San Fernando and to the Mexican
viceroys, he had gathered
Father Junipero's most insatiable passion was for
baptizing Indians; the saving of one soul thus from death
filled him with unspeakable joy.
When he preached he was carried out of himself by the
fervor of his desire to impress his hearers. Baring his
breast, he would beat it violently with a stone, or burn
the flesh with a lighted torch, to enhance the effect of
his descriptions of the tortures of hell.
There were nine of these missions, founded by Serra,
before his death in 1784. |
Father
Junipero Serra
(Source: Library of Congress). |
