1 July 2022 - Father Junipero Serra - Friday of the 13th week of Ordinary Time - Matthew 9:9-13

      When Jesus called out to Matthew, the tax collector, “Follow me,” it was a surprise not only to Matthew, but those who knew him.  How could a tax collector, seen as a member of a dishonorable profession, be called to be one of Jesus’ close disciples? 

      Sometimes, those who receive God’s call defy human logic.  On September 23, 2015, when Pope Francis was in the United States on a pastoral visit, he canonized Father Junipero Serra at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.  Pope Francis said that it was fitting to canonize Father Serra in Washington, since it is in that same city that Father Serra’s statue stands in the national statuary hall of the US Capitol, where he represents the state of California. Father Serra was an academic scholar, a professor in a seminary on the island of Mallorca in his native Spain, when he was chosen to travel to the missions in Mexico. He did not seem to be the logical choice.  At the age of 53 and in very poor health, after spending 18 years in Mexico, Father Serra was then chosen to found the missions in the Mexican province of Alta California in the present-day US state of California.   A hard, persistent worker, Father Serra’s founding of the missions in the state of California is seen as contributing greatly to the establishment and spread of the Church on the West Coast of the United States when it was still mission territory. Father Serra established 9 of the 21 missions in California himself prior to his death, including the missions in Los Angeles, Santa Clara, San Juan Capistrano, and San Diego.  He is buried at the mission of St Charles Borromeo in Carmel, California.  A pilgrimage walk linking all of the California missions together has been established by American pilgrims who have walked the Camino of St James in Spain.  And who knows, maybe in our lifetime that walk will become a popular American pilgrimage Camino. The whole mission chain from San Diego to Sonoma stretches across most of the state over more than 800 miles.  I have hiked part of the mission trail in California, and hope to hike more of it when I go out to California for a mission appeal in August.  

       We never know how Jesus is going to call us to follow him, do we?  I am sure Father Serra never imagine that his road from being a quiet professor would lead him to be founder of the Catholic missions in California.   All we have to do is take that first step in following that call.