If you love and honor Blessed Junipero Serra, the founder of the California missions, you probably realize how fortunate you are to have discovered the magazine -- The California Mission.
We are printing a biography of Father Serra. However, the biography of Father Serra that you find in "The California Mission" is unlike all the other biographies of this great Catholic missionary. Why is our biography unique? It's simple. We are reprinting the first biography of Father Serra that was ever wirtten -- the historic biography written a year after Serra's death in 1785 by his beloved friend and fellow Franciscan missionary, Francisco Palou. You'll never find this biography in a bookstore for the simple reason that it has been out-of-print for over 40 years.
We hope by now that we've attracted your interest. We'd like to invite you to subscribe to the California Mission so that you can follow, chapter by chapter, this great history of Serra's life. It is the only biography of Blessed Junipero Serra that was written by an eyewitness.
We also print other stories that give valuable background to Serra's missionary work. For example, in our third issue we tell the story of Maria of Agreda, "the Lady in Blue". She was a Spanish Poor Clare nun who lived 100 years before Serra came to California. In the 1630's she experienced over 500 instances of miraculous bilocation -- the Lord transporting her to the land of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, where she evangelized and converted Indian tribes before they were ever visited by missionaries. She wrote a letter to encourage all missionaries in their task. Father Serra was greatly inspired by Maria of Agreda and she is mentioned several times in Palou's Life of Serra.
The California Mission had an article about a man who walked the California Missions and had a life-changing experience with Fr. Serra. Click here to read the story
The March/April issue of the Catholic Faith magazine had an article on Fr. Serra. Click here to read the article
The cause for sainthood for Blessed Junipero Serra now has a newsletter. The newsletter is called Siempre Adelante!, spanish for "always go forward" which is part of Fr. Serra's motto, "Always go Forward and Never turn Back!". Brother Timothy Arthur is the cause's director. He resides at the Old Mission Santa Barbara. Also, a newly published booklet of Blessed Junipero Serra devotions, "Meditations and Novena," is now available. A $5.00 donation is requested. For more information about the Blessed Junipero Serra cause or to subscribe to the newsletter and receive the devotions, contact Brother Timothy Arthur, at Old Mission Santa Barbara, 2201 Laguna Street, Santa Barbara, California 93105. Please make out your donation check to "Serra Cause". Please do not send requests for materials for 4th grade mission reports, Brother Timothy is very busy with his work already.
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Last modified: March 12, 2001
Web page updated by Eric Bateman, please send him email at webmaster@msjc.org for questions or updates for this page.