Mission San Juan Bautista

I must say...it was such a joy to be able to go on this mission trip throughout the Advent and Christmas season.  The churches were decorated in the liturgical colors and it made for a prayerful experience.  However, sometimes it led to unplanned changes to our schedule.  For instance, we had originally planned to visit the Carmel mission on St. Stephen's feast day.  We arrived to find the doors closed!  That had us fretting about the other missions for the rest of the trip.

However, I think everything happens for a reason and this was no exception.  It made us refocus our efforts and come up with a better plan.  This will be seen as we continue through the remaining missions.

After the small scale mission in Soledad, we made our way to Mission San Juan Bautista.  It was a little further east than the other missions and so we were glad to have this day trip to the mission before making the longer trip up to San Francisco.

This was the 15th of the missions and the sixth mission under the leadership of Fr. Lasuen.  The mission began its construction with the assistance of the military and then the Mutsun natives and later the Yokuts natives as well.

One of the special aspects of this mission was the boys choir that consisted of boys from the local tribes.  This choir began in 1812 when a retired president of the missions, Fr. Tapis, came to the mission.  He saw the potential of the native children and created a special system of colored notes to teach them the hymns that they would perform.

This mission has a unique design because it was originally meant for a larger congregation.  Since this increase in population did not come to fruition, the side aisles in the design were filled in and created a stronger building against earthquakes and allowed for extra storage.  To add to the interior design, a Boston sailor, Thomas Doak, found his way to the missions.  He would be the only Anglo resident of the missions and he shared his gift of artistry as the sole painter of these walls.  The walls are just as vibrant in color more than 200 years later.  Also of interest is the ability to light the main altar with the morning sun through the church window on December 21 each year.

In 1935, it became a part of the state historical park system.  It was fully renovated with steel beams hidden within the walls for earthquake protection funded by the Hearst foundation.  During this renovation, the outer aisles of the church were reopened.

The museum was interesting as it housed some of the original areas from the mission.  This included living quarters and the kitchen that had a pass through into the dining room.  Because this as part of the original construction, one can see how short the doorways are compared to today's standards.  For those of us who are Hitchcock fans, the movie Vertigo was filmed on location here.  There is a tribute to this master film maker in the museum.

What I found most interesting about the interior of the church was the connection to John the Baptist.  There really seemed to be a continuous theme in the decorations.  The baptistery was simple but a dove hung above the font from the ceiling.  The church extends out to include an additional altar on each side of the main one.  It seemed fitting for the theme of the baptism of the Lord to show the triune God first revealed together at this moment in time.  There was artwork throughout, even in the smallest of corners and much of this was the original artwork of Thomas Doak mentioned above.

We left the church to take a walk through the gardens.  I loved the small garden path for the Stations of the Cross.  We all took some time to stop and smell the roses as well.  We then saw a tribute statue to Fr. Lasuen who I have mentioned in several of my posts as the director of the missions after Fr. Serra.

We left the mission through the gift shop.  I saw a Christmas book that I had wanted to add to our collection on the half price table.  I could not refuse that deal.  While I was taking care of this business, my mom was on her own mission.  She was in search of a cat!  Fr. Hall had told her this story when she mentioned Rosario to him.  She was determined to find the second mission cat on our journey.

This cat was featured in a Guidepost article written by one of the ladies from our parish.  It is an interesting story that I encourage you to read (see link here) about Sula.  She is said to help people who are having emotional difficulties.  She is so loved by the congregation that they raised money for a surgery she needed.  She had to have her ears removed in order to save her from the cancer.  It was such a docile cat that she went limp in the boys' arms.  Then when she was tired of the ordeal, she just mewed to be put down.  She mewed again to have mom open a side door into a store room off the gift shop.


Our plan was to leave as there was one more mission to try to see today.  However, we had not seen the typical Serra statue, so we began our search.  Not only did we find his statue but an amazing statue of John the Baptist as well.  I took pictures from all the angles because it really did a great job of telling his biblical story.

When we were just turning to leave, Michael said he had to find a geocache.  I was all about the cache find but we were now in more of a hurry...what could be so important?  Well, it turned out that this was the location of the San Andres fault line.  AND...it was also part of the original El Camino Real.  We could actual walk the path of the missionaries!  So awesome...and to think we would never had known had it not been for a geocache!

Can you believe it...we did not take a picture!
This one was shared by another blogger at missiontour.org.