The California Mission

Important notice

Dear Friends of The California Mission magazine,

After much prayer and discernment Mission San Jose Community has decided to discontinue The California Mission magazine after the May 2002 issue. Almost five years ago we set out on a new outreach ministry. We began producing The California Mission magazine. In the masthead of each issue was a quote from Pope John Paul II's encyclical letter Mission of the Redeemer, "As the third millennium of the redemption draws near, God is preparing a great springtime for Christianity, and we can already see its first signs."1 Our primary goal of the magazine was to help promote the new "Springtime" by helping to prepare us for the great Jubilee of the year 2000 through essays, meditations on the Sunday Mass readings and personal witness stories.

A second goal of the magazine was the recovery of our Catholic history, exemplified in the life of Blessed Junípero Serra, founder of the California missions. We are grateful to the Franciscan Friars of California, Santa Barbara province for allowing us to reprint the historic biography written a year after Serra's death in 1785 by his beloved friend and fellow Franciscan missionary, Francisco Palóu.

If you are a subscriber to the magazine and your subscription goes beyond the May 2002 issue you will be reimbursed accordingly. We felt that the end of the Father Serra story was a natural place to end. The last issue will be a special commemorative issue that will include an essay by Father Gerard Beigel about the life of Blessed Junípero Serra. It will also contain the attributes of Serra, written by Francisco Palóu and included in his biography.

During the last five years we have published over 45,000 copies of The California Mission magazine. They have been sent to 41 different states in all, to Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire and Arizona to name a few. We have had requests for issues from all over the world. Issues have been sent to 20 different countries including China, Pakistan, Brazil and Finland. We have given them out at Catholic conferences, bookstores and churches. We thank the Lord for all of you who have supported this effort. We pray that it has been a personal blessing to you.

In the words of Blessed Father Junípero Serra, "Always go forward, never turn back" we look to the future and are considering the possibility of providing the same great essays and Mass meditations that you enjoyed from The California Mission at our website (http://www.msjc.org). Visit our website, bookmark it and check back often. Mission San Jose Community is committed to providing good Catholic teaching to encourage all of us to discover the rich treasure of the Church.

- Dan Franke, Editor

Junipero Serra {image}

1 Paragraph 86, Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II Redemptoris Missio on the Permanent Validity of the Church's Missionary Mandate, December 7, 1990.