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In 18th-century Spain, daring stories of missionaries spreading the Gospel in the New World ignited the imagination of a devout young boy. Miguel Serra's dream soon became a reality. As Franciscan friar Junípero Serra, he traveled to the New World and tirelessly preached the love of Christ to the natives living in the uncharted wilderness of California. Join the "founding father of California" on his amazing journey. Experience the zeal of the saint who established the first nine Catholic missions in California, from San Diego to San Francisco.
A portrait of the priest and colonialist who is one of the most important figures in California's history In the 1770s, just as Britain's American subjects were freeing themselves from the burdens of colonial rule, Spaniards moved up the California coast to build frontier outposts of empire and church. At the head of this effort was Junípero Serra, an ambitious Franciscan who hoped to convert California Indians to Catholicism and turn them into European-style farmers. For his efforts, he has been beatified by the Catholic Church and widely celebrated as the man who laid the foundation for modern California. But his legacy is divisive. The missions Serra founded would devastate California's Native American population, and much more than his counterparts in colonial America, he remains a contentious and contested figure to this day. Steven W. Hackel's groundbreaking biography, Junípero Serra: California's Founding Father, is the first to remove Serra from the realm of polemic and place him within the currents of history. Born into a poor family on the Spanish island of Mallorca, Serra joined the Franciscan order and rose to prominence as a priest and professor through his feats of devotion and powers of intellect. But he could imagine no greater service to God than converting Indians, and in 1749 he set off for the new world. In Mexico, Serra first worked as a missionary to Indians and as an uncompromising agent of the Inquisition. He then became an itinerant preacher, gaining a reputation as a mesmerizing orator who could inspire, enthrall, and terrify his audiences at will. With a potent blend of Franciscan piety and worldly cunning, he outmaneuvered Spanish royal officials, rival religious orders, and avaricious settlers to establish himself as a peerless frontier administrator. In the culminating years of his life, he extended Spanish dominion north, founding and promoting missions in present-day San Diego, Los Angeles, Monterey, and San Francisco. But even Serra could not overcome the forces massing against him. California's military leaders rarely shared his zeal, Indians often opposed his efforts, and ultimately the missions proved to be cauldrons of disease and discontent. Serra, in his hope to save souls, unwittingly helped bring about the massive decline of California's indigenous population. On the three-hundredth anniversary of Junípero Serra's birth, Hackel's complex, authoritative biography tells the full story of a man whose life and legacies continue to be both celebrated and denounced. Based on exhaustive research and a vivid narrative, this is an essential portrait of America's least understood founder.
In Junípero Serra: California, Indians, and the Transformation of a Missionary, Beebe and Senkewicz focus on Serra’s religious identity and his relations with Native peoples. They intersperse their narrative with new and accessible translations of many of Serra’s letters and sermons, which allows his voice to be heard in a more direct and engaging fashion.
The narrative of the remarkable life of Junipero Serra, the intrepid priest who led Spain and the Catholic Church into California in the 1700s and became a key figure in the making of the American West. In the year 1749, at the age of thirty-six, Junipero Serra left his position as a highly regarded priest in Spain for the turbulent and dangerous New World, knowing he would never return. The Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church both sought expansion in Mexico--the former in search of gold, the latter seeking souls--as well as entry into the mysterious land to the north called "California." By his death at age seventy-one, Serra had traveled more than 14,000 miles on land and sea through the New World--much of that distance on a chronically infected and painful foot--baptized and confirmed 6,000 Indians, and founded nine of California's twenty-one missions, with his followers establishing the rest.
Serra's legacy has been distorted. Taking the controversy head-on, this composition aims to bring clarity to Serra's heritage. Christian Clifford's passion for the topic and presentation will help the fair-minded see the first American saint canonized on American soil in a clear and concise way and as one worthy of inviting on one's own faith journey. Going beyond the standard biography and drawing from many disciplines, the author paints a vivid picture of Serra during his time and through the years. This book is written with Catholic high school students, parents, and religious educators in mind. However, anyone who is interested in the man Pope Francis called the "Evangelizer of the West" will deepen their understanding of this amazing Catholic Hispanic.
As one of America’s most important missionaries, Junípero Serra is widely recognized as the founding father of California’s missions. It was for that work that he was canonized in 2015 by Pope Francis. Less well known, however, is the degree to which Junípero Serra embodied the social, religious and artistic currents that shaped Spain and Mexico across the 18th century. Further, Serra’s reception in American culture in the 19th and 20th centuries has often been obscured by the controversies surrounding his treatment of California’s Indians. This volume situates Serra in the larger Spanish and Mexican contexts within which he lived, learned, and came of age. Offering a rare glimpse into Serra’s life, these essays capture the full complexity of cultural trends and developments that paved the way for this powerful missionary to become not only California’s most polarizing historical figure but also North America’s first Spanish colonial saint.
The Archbishop of Birmingham, England, presents a popular but thorough biography of Blessed Junipero Serra, the tireless Franciscan missionary who came to California in the 18th century to evangelize the Indians. Well-known for the historic missions which he helped establish all along the coast from San Diego to San Francisco, Father Serra is even recognized by the secular society of the U.S. government as the "founder of California". His larger than life-size statue stands in a hall of the U.S. Capital as one of the pioneers who created the United States of America. Archbishop de Murville presents a historical and spiritual biography of Serra from his childhood and student days in Majorca, Spain, to his time in Mexico, and to his great missionary work in California. Recently beatified by Pope John Paul II, Father Serra's presence and work is still very much alive through the beautiful missions that are visited by millions every year.
Travelers following Saint Junipero Serra's Camino Real in California with a pilgrim's heart--and this book in hand--will make their way to 21 missions established in the 1700s, stretching from San Diego to Sonoma north of San Francisco Bay. For each mission, this guide provides the street address, the mission's website, a brief history of the place, the story of the mission's patron or namesake, and information about the mission bells. A true pilgrimage, the experience of following Saint Serra's Camino can be a transformative and enriching one.