Blessed Junipero Serra
The long dusty, desolate road to California!

When Blessed Junipero Serra arrived at his new post, the 40,000 Indians reported by the Jesuits were now a mere 8,000. Serra, who loved the Indians dearly, described them as a handsome people.

But sadly, the huts were so poor and conditions so deplorable, 1000 Indians were dying each year, and the death rate of infants 100%.

It is believed that Indian women were purposely aborting their babies rather than have them starve to death.

Disease finished off those Indians who did not die of starvation.

 Father Palóu prophesied, if conditions remained as they were, Baja would be left without a single soul.

Blessed Junipero Serra's year here, which had begun with so much enthusiasm, ended with disappointment.

At first, not in keeping with the other missions in Mexico, the missionaries were to have a say in only the spiritual aspects of the missions.

Blessed Junipero Serra - Apostle of California

When the newly appointed inspector general saw the impossible conditions, he most willingly handed over all the responsibility to Father Serra and the missionaries.

No sooner did Blessed Junipero Serra begin to work on change, than he was summoned to engage in the evangelization of what was called then Alta California (or California).

In 1769, when Friar Junípero had been transferred to Baja or lower California, although man thought it was for him to run the fifteen missions seized from the Jesuits, God had another idea.

Father Serra was informed, barely one year after having arrived in Baja that he was to pioneer the settlement of missions in Alta or upper California. On July 1, 1769, he arrived in San Diego, and on July 2nd, he celebrated the first Mass in what is now known as the famous California Missions.

He was 56 and the biggest challenge of his life faced him, all that he had received in education, all the spiritual preparations he had made, the austerities he had practiced most of his life would be for this one act, this his last gift to the Lord and His Mother.

California would be consecrated, every hill, valley, mountain, village, every street would be blessed.

Blessed Junipero Serra - I shall not turn back!

          It took Father Serra almost twenty years, from the time he was first summoned to come to the New World and serve in the missions, before he got to his first California Mission in San Diego, in what is today the State of California.  Those twenty years prior to arriving at San Diego were at times a painful prelude, filled with joy and sorrows, readying him for his biggest challenge, setting up missions a day's walk apart up the coast of California.  The missionary who worked furtively his last years on earth was tired and more dead than alive.  When one of his companions begged him to stop, his legs so badly swollen and in pain that he could not celebrate Mass standing, Father Serra refused saying,

          "Please do not speak of that, for I trust that if God will give me the strength to reach San Diego, as He has given me the strength to come this far, I shall not turn back.  They can bury me wherever they wish and I shall gladly be left among the pagans, if it be the Will of God." 

          It had taken him almost three months to reach San Diego from Baja California.  Half dead, most of the time, he never turned back!

          December 26, 1770, Father Serra performed his first baptism in California.  In addition to San Diego and San Carlos del Carmel, Blessed Junipero Serra went on to found San Antonio de Padua in July, 1771; San Gabriel in September, 1771; San Luis Obispo in September, 1772; San Francisco in October, 1776; San Juan Capistrano in January, 1777; and San Buenaventura in March 1782.