We heard the prophet Amos proclaim in the first reading today: “Seek good and not evil, that you may live.” I read those words in the context of today’s feast day, honoring Junipero Serra, a missionary to our own country in the mid-18th century and founder of the first nine missions in the vast California mission system, missions that would be located in places that are familiar to us today: San Diego, San Francisco, Carmel, and San Juan Capistrano. Junipero Serra was canonized a saint not long ago, by Pope Francis himself in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC in 2015 when he visited the United States. Serra is the first Hispanic American saint. Yet, there have been protests against Father Serra becoming a saint and being honored with statues, with accusations against the way he treated the native population to whom he brought the Gospel. In fact, the day I wrote this homily, I read an article of how a group of Catholic college students prevented an angry group of protestors from destroying a statue of the saint in front of the city hall in Ventura, California, a city where Father Serra founded a mission. Father Serra was not appointed as the head of the missionary effort in California until 1767 when he was 54 years old, in very bad health with a leg that had been infected with open sores for years and a bad case of asthma. But, this humble Franciscan friar, who had spent most of his career as a priest as a professor of theology and philosophy, worked tirelessly in bringing the Gospel to the people of present-day California. His motto was - Siempre adelante, nunca hacia atrás. Always forward, never back. He never dwelt on past mistakes, but tried to learn from the past and to look forward to what he could do for the Lord. Father Serra was a product of his time, yes. He lived in the era of the Spanish Inquisition and was actually a judge for the Inquisition. Yet, facts show that he had a great love for the native people to whom he ministered. California’s bishops echoed issued a joint statement, asserting that Serra was a man “ahead of his times” who worked against an “oppression that extends far beyond the mission era… If that is not enough to legitimate a public statue in the state that he did so much to create, then virtually every historical figure from our nation’s past will have to be removed for their failings measured in the light of today’s standards.” We honor St Junipero Serra today. May he inspire us to bring the Gospel to others. May we unite our prayers to his prayers today.
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