[00:00] In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today in the Franciscan liturgy, we honor St. Juniper Serra. St. Juniper Serra, originally from Spain, traveled to Mexico and eventually would be the founding father of the Missions of California. He is known as the Apostle to California, and he founded nine of the 21 missions there.

[00:33] His successors, after his death—he founded nine, and his successors founded the rest after his death, making up 21. St. Juniper Serra had a beautiful motto: "Always forward, never backward." And this motto carried him to be zealous in his missionary zeal and his apostolic ministry in bringing the Gospel of Christ to those in the New World, especially to the Native

[01:06] Americans in California. Father Juniper Serra founded the missions; of course he walked thousands of miles, and he would, in founding a mission, walk a day's journey, and then he would found another one. And once that was established, he would walk a day's journey and establish another mission, so that they would be a day's travel apart.

[01:38] Something extraordinary, though, is that Father Juniper Serra had a very bad ulcerated leg. Soon after his arrival in Mexico, he had been stung by a scorpion on his leg, and that sting from the scorpion festered and became badly infected, and it infected his whole life; it became ulcerated, and he had this terrible sore on his leg for

[02:11] the rest of his life, but yet it did not deter him, it did not hold him back from walking and from bringing the Gospel. Once he was with a mule driver, and he asked the mule driver if he could make a remedy for his leg, and the mule driver said, "Father, I know how to heal the wounds of my mules, but I don't know how to heal that on you." And so he said, "Apply the same thing you would apply to your mules," and so the man made a

[02:42] mixture of fat and wild herbs and applied it to Father Serra's leg, and it did heal enough so that he could walk, continue his mission by walking. He also was a great defender of the Native Americans, contrary to some of the deceptions in our modern society that say things contrary. He was a defender of the Native Americans, and in fact, he walked over 900 miles to bring

[03:17] a message through the king's consort in Mexico to get the rights to protect the Native Americans from the Spanish military and Spanish civil authorities who could abuse them; he traveled over 900 miles by foot to be able to defend the rights of the Native Americans from abuse.

[03:49] And so Father Juniper Serra was a great defender of the Native Americans; in fact, of them he said, "They have captured my heart, they have captured my heart," he loved them so much, and wanted only to bring them the news of the Gospel and bring them salvation to make them children of God, which command comes directly from Jesus Christ: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

[04:20] Father Juniper Serra was canonized; he died in 1784, I believe, at the age of 70. He died in Mission St. Charles Borromeo in Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, and this was his favorite mission. I've been very blessed to be able to visit some of his missions, and I visited this mission. His body is actually there in the mission of St. Charles Borromeo in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

[04:50] It's a beautiful mission, which he founded, and he was canonized by Pope Francis in Washington, D.C. And each state, of course, has two statues of people who were important to the state's history. And in our U.S. Capitol, California, one of the statues is of Father Serra. So there's a Catholic saint in the U.S. Capitol, St. Juniper Serra. Today we can pray to Father Serra for that same apostolic missionary zeal that he had

[05:25] in spreading the Gospel, and that we might have the same courage, the same trust, and the same faith that he did in our Lord Jesus Christ. He had a profound trust and faith in Jesus amidst so many hardships and difficulties. He never lost heart. He never was discouraged, but persevered, trusting in our Lord's love and mercy and assistance. May St. Juniper Serra pray for us that we may imitate his zeal in sharing our faith

[05:55] and being witnesses to our love of Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.