SeeCalifornia.com

As a non-native Californian traveling and trying to get to know some of   the best California landmarks and stories behind them, I keep seeing one character who appears all over–Junipero Serra, founder of California missions. He must be someone special, as I’ve seen statues of him throughout the state. He was born in Mallorca, Spain in 1713 and was buried at the Carmel Mission in Carmel by the Sea in 1784 at the age of 71.   You’ll find Serra statues at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, in Sacramento on the State Capitol grounds,  nearly all California missions, and even in the U.S. Capitol at the National Statuary Hall Collection.  Father Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987 as the second of three steps necessary for the Church’s bestowal of formal sainthood, and today his name is taught to all 4th grade students in California as part of their history lessons.

What I didn’t know about this rather short, stately looking gent who appears balding on top, garbed in a long, hooded robe and carrying a staff, is that he was not known to be a gentle soul–no way! Serra was quite intelligent–and willing to experience & inflict pain. Even when he was sick and bitten by a snake, he continued to walk hundreds of miles (so the story goes,) put sharp metal objects in his clothes to cut his own chest, burned himself with hot candles, and ordered beatings and other suffering on imprisoned native Indians drafted into slavery in the newly-founded missions. Read more…>