The psalm states today: I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. The psalm speaks about the trust Israel puts in the Lord, seeing the Lord as its help and it shield. I thought of the saint we celebrate today in our Church’s liturgical calendar as I reflected on the psalm today, how that saint walked in the presence of the Lord in the midst of his call as a Franciscan priest and missionary in the Americas. St. Junípero Serra was born in 1713 in Mallorca, Spain. Mallorca is an island that is part of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean. He was born into a family of poor farmers. I remember reading a biography of Father Serra, stating that during the time of his life there on Mallorca, famine was common, with a great part of the population perishing through these famines. So, life was not easy for them. He joined the Franciscans as a teenager. He was such an accomplished student that he was appointed a professor of philosophy even before he was ordained a priest. He had a very accomplished career as a philosophy professor, but left for the Americas at the age of 36, feeling the call to become a missionary. After a difficult voyage to Mexico, Serra worked among the native population, learning their native language and translating the catechism into that language. He became known for his preaching, his penance, and his mortification practices. Soon after his arrival in Mexico, he was bitten by a spider on the leg, which caused an infection and left him with a permanent injury, making it difficult to walk and causing him constant pain and suffering. Yet, he continued to walk everywhere he could to evangelize the people there. In 1767, he was assigned to go to what is now the state of California, mission territory the Franciscans inherited from the Jesuits when that order was suspended. Until his death in 1784, he found 9 missions in California, including San Diego, San Francisco, Monterrey, and San Gabriel near the current-day city of Los Angeles. He was buried at San Carlos Borromeo Mission in Carmel, California. Although some in the secular world criticize the work of Father Serra, I see him as an amazing example of faith, a man who accepted a call from God to bring the Gospel to others, who did so through great sacrifice and great joy. The state of California and the Catholic Church in the United States were impacted greatly by his efforts.
Pope Francis said this about Father Serra at his canonization to sainthood in 2015, which took place in the Basilica in Washington, DC: “He was the embodiment of ‘a Church which goes forth’, a Church which sets out to bring everywhere the reconciling tenderness of God… Junípero Serra left his native land and its way of life. He was excited about blazing trails, going forth to meet many people, learning and valuing their particular customs and ways of life. He learned how to bring to birth and nurture God’s life in the faces of everyone he met; he made them his brothers and sisters.” We unite our prayers with the prayers of St Junipero Serra today.
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