The following was originally published in The Angelus ,
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Recently, statues to the Apostle of California, St. Junípero Serra, were torn down in San Francisco and in the plaza outside our first church, Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles, in downtown Los Angeles. Up and down the state, there is growing debate about removing St. Junípero memorials from public lands. Ventura officials have announced that they will hold a public hearing July 7 to debate whether to take down his statue from in front of Ventura City Hall.
Faced with the possibility of vandalism, we are taking increased security precautions at the historic missions located in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, we will probably have to relocate some statues to our beloved saint or risk their desecration.
These developments sadden me. I have been thinking and writing about St. Junípero for many years now.
I understand the deep pain being expressed by some native peoples in California. But I also believe Fray Junípero is a saint for our times, the spiritual founder of Los Angeles, a champion of human rights, and this country’s first Hispanic saint. I was privileged to celebrate his canonization Mass with Pope Francis in 2015. I rely on his intercession in my ministry, and I am inspired by his desire to bring God’s tender mercy to every person.
The exploitation of America’s first peoples, the destruction of their ancient civilizations, is a historic tragedy. Crimes committed against their ancestors continue to shape the lives and futures of native peoples today. Generations have passed and our country still has not done enough to make things right.
In the family of God here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, we have worked hard to atone for past errors and wrongs and to find the path forward together. We honor the contributions that native peoples made to building the Church in Southern California and we cherish their gifts in the mission of the Church today.
Over the years, I have come to understand how the image of Father Serra and the missions evokes painful memories for some people. For that reason, I believe the protests over our history in California, and the broader protests that have started elsewhere in the country over historical monuments, are important.
Historical memory is the soul of every nation. What we remember about our past and how we remember it defines our national identity — the kind of people we want to be, the values and principles we want to live by.
But history is complicated. The facts matter, distinctions need to be made, and the truth counts. We cannot learn history’s lessons or heal old wounds unless we understand what really happened, how it happened, and why.
Our society may reach a consensus not to honor St. Junípero or various other figures from our past. But elected officials cannot abdicate their responsibilities by turning these decisions over to small groups of protesters, allowing them to vandalize public monuments. This is not how a great democracy should function.
Allowing the free expression of public opinion is important. So is upholding the rule of law and ensuring that decisions we reach as a society are based on genuine dialogue and the search for truth and the common good.
In this regard, how the City of Ventura is handling the debate over its Serra monument can be a model for thoughtful and respectful public discourse that includes civil authorities, indigenous leaders, representatives of the Church, and the community at large.
In other cases, it is clear that those attacking St. Junípero’s good name and vandalizing his memorials do not know his true character or the actual historical record.
The sad truth is that, beginning decades ago, activists started “revising” history to make St. Junípero the focus of all the abuses committed against California’s indigenous peoples.
But the crimes and abuses that our saint is blamed for — slanders that are spread widely today over the internet and sometimes repeated by public figures — actually happened long after his death.
It was California’s first governor who called for “a war of extermination” against the Indians and called in the U.S. Cavalry to help carry out his genocidal plans. That was in 1851. St. Junípero died in 1784.
The real St. Junípero fought a colonial system where natives were regarded as “barbarians” and “savages,” whose only value was to serve the appetites of the white man. For St. Junípero, this colonial ideology was a blasphemy against the God who has “created (all men and women) and redeemed them with the most precious blood of his Son.”
He lived and worked alongside native peoples and spent his whole career defending their humanity and protesting crimes and indignities committed against them. Among the injustices he struggled against, we find heartbreaking passages in his letters where he decries the daily sexual abuse of indigenous women by colonial soldiers.
For St. Junípero, the natives were not just powerless victims of colonial brutality. In his letters, he describes their “gentleness and peaceful dispositions,” he celebrates their creativity and knowledge; he remembers little acts of kindness and generosity, even the sweet sound of their voices as they sang.
He learned their languages and their ancient customs and ways. St. Junípero came not to conquer, he came to be a brother. “We have all come here and remained here for the sole purpose of their well-being and salvation,” he once wrote. “And I believe everyone realizes we love them.”
I like to think that his deep reverence for creation was influenced by his conversations and observations among this land’s first peoples.
St. Junípero became one of America’s first environmentalists, documenting California’s diverse habitats in diary entries and letters where he described mountains and plains, the blazing sun and the effects of drought, the overflow of brooks and rivers, cottonwood and willow trees, roses in bloom, the roar of a mountain lion that kept the missionaries awake at night.
St. Junípero also understood that the souls of indigenous Americans had been darkened with bitterness and rage at their historic mistreatment and the atrocities committed against them.
In 1775, when Kumeyaay attackers burned down the mission in San Diego, torturing and murdering his dear friend, Father Luís Jayme, California’s first martyr, St. Junípero was not outraged. He was concerned for the killers’ souls. He pleaded with authorities to have mercy.
“As for the culprits, their offense should be forgiven after some slight punishment,” he said. “By doing so they would see we were putting into practice the rule we teach them — to return good for evil and to pardon our enemies.”
This may be the first moral argument against the use of the death penalty in American history. And St. Junípero was arguing against its imposition on an oppressed minority.
St. Junípero was 60 years old when he traveled 2,000 miles from Carmel to Mexico City to protest the injustices of the colonial system and demand that authorities adopt a “bill of rights” that he had written for the native peoples.
That was in 1773, three years before America’s founders declared this nation’s independence with those beautiful words: “all men are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
Pope Francis called St. Junípero “one of the founding fathers of the United States.” He recognized that the saint’s witness anticipated the great spirit of human equality and liberty under God that has come to define the American project.
Yet in online petitions today we find St. Junípero compared to Adolf Hitler, his missions compared to concentration camps. No serious historian would accept this, and we should not allow these libels to be made in public arguments about our great saint.
Despite their many flaws, the California missions were similar to some of the other communes and “communitarian” societies we find in early American history.
The missions were multicultural communities of worship and work, with their own governments and a self-sustaining economy based on agriculture and handicrafts. Living and working together, Natives and Spaniards created a new, mestizo (“mixed”) culture reflected in the distinctive art, architecture, music, poetry, and prayers that came out of the missions.
It is sadly true that corporal punishment was sometimes used in the missions, as it was practiced throughout late 18th-century society. It is also true that some natives died of diseases in the missions.
But the tragic ruin of native populations occurred long after St. Junípero was gone and the missions were closed or “secularized.” Serious scholars conclude that St. Junípero himself was a gentle man and there were no physical abuses or forced conversions while he was president of the mission system.
St. Junípero did not impose Christianity, he proposed it. For him, the greatest gift he could offer was to bring people to the encounter with Jesus Christ. Living in the missions was always voluntary, and in the end just 10-20% of California’s native population ever joined him.
My brothers and sisters, this is the truth about St. Junípero.
In this hour of trial in our nation, when once again we are confronting America’s shameful legacy of racism, I invite you to join me in observing St. Junípero’s feast day, July 1, as a day of prayer, fasting, and charity.
Let us ask St. Junípero’s intercession for this nation that he helped to found. Let us pray with him for healing, reconciliation, an increase in empathy and understanding, an end to racial prejudice, and a new awareness of what it means that all men and women are created equal as children of God.
Every true reform begins in the human heart, and St. Junípero would tell us that only mercy and pardon and true contrition can move us forward at this moment in our history.
I have spent these recent days praying and reflecting on his life and writings and I have prepared a spiritual meditation composed almost entirely of words from St. Junípero’s sermons and letters.
I offer this meditation, along with this letter, for your prayer and reflection as we work together to promote the healing of memories and an end to the racism that still plagues our nation’s systems and institutions.
Pray for me and I will pray for you. May God grant peace to you and your families. I entrust all of us to the Immaculate Heart of Mary our Blessed Mother.
Episode 15 -The Way of Mystery: The Eucharist and Moral Living– The journey begins into the unitive way…the beginning of falling in love with God. Combined with the entry into the sacramental life, living out the moral life becomes more than meeting a “goal” but becomes a “way” of life.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha.
The Vatican II documents remind us that the spiritual journey is not made in a vacuum, that God has chosen to save us, not individually, but as The People of God. The Eucharist must help Christians to make their choices by discerning out of Christ’s paschal mystery. For this process to take place, however, Christians must first understand how the Eucharist puts them in touch with Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and what concrete implications being in touch with this mystery has for their daily lives.
“Modern man has amnesia. Even the darkest pages of history must not be forgotten.” The panel takes on chapter 7 “Where Is the World Headed?” of Cardinal Robert Sarah’s 2019 book “The Day Is Now Far Spent”.
This discussion is part of the FORMED Book Club—an online community led by Fr. Joseph Fessio and Joseph Pearce that reads and discusses a different book each month. Go to formedbookclub.ignatius.com to sign up for free!
Robert Cardinal Sarah calls The Day Is Now Far Spent his most important book. He analyzes the spiritual, moral, and political collapse of the Western world and concludes that “the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril.”
A cultural identity crisis, he writes, is at the root of the problems facing Western societies. “The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations.”
While making clear the gravity of the present situation, the cardinal demonstrates that it is possible to avoid the hell of a world without God, a world without hope. He calls for a renewal of devotion to Christ through prayer and the practice of virtue.
Episode 14 -The Way of Mystery: The Eucharist and Moral Living– The Eucharist summons us like a beacon. Even in the face of scandal, the moral authority of the Church shines through the Eucharist and challenges us to follow Christ in moving forward and allowing our hearts to be transformed. Mortal sin, what is it and how does it affect our relationship with the Eucharist…with Christ? Being present at mass even if you shouldn’t receive…not allowing yourself to be separated from worship.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha.
The Vatican II documents remind us that the spiritual journey is not made in a vacuum, that God has chosen to save us, not individually, but as The People of God. The Eucharist must help Christians to make their choices by discerning out of Christ’s paschal mystery. For this process to take place, however, Christians must first understand how the Eucharist puts them in touch with Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and what concrete implications being in touch with this mystery has for their daily lives.
Conference 2: Healing Gifts and Transforming Moments
Unity of Jesus in Heaven with the Church on Earththrough
Baptism…with Mary as the one who connects/joins/links the Body on earth with Jesus, the Head.
Mary’s love for the people of earth: encouraging, teaching, warning, appearing,interceding
Message to JuanDiego
My dearest son, hear and let it penetrate into your heart: Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you.
Let nothing trouble your heart or your mind.
Do not fear any illness or worry, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need?
During these past months of pandemic – in isolation and uncertainty we have come face-to-face with our beautiful yet fragile world. We have come to realize more deeply than ever before that we are living in a world of poverty, pain, illness, grief, and death…in a world of uncertainty, division, injustice, anger, and frustration…in a world of spiritual darkness where peoples are yearning for light…where there is so much need for healing.
Now is the timeto live with courage, to accept our individual brokenness, to embrace our own wounded-ness – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual – and to seek healing. Only then can we put our wounded-ness at the service of others. Only then can we become
Many Saints had transforming encounters with Jesus in their lives and radiated Christ, shining forth with the Divine Power of grace. They are beautiful examples for us -‐ and powerful intercessors for our healing.
Building a Kingdom of Love -‐ Msgr. John A. Esseff
“A war is raging. Heaven and hell are on a collision course. Because
many of Jesus’ soldiers are wounded, we need healing. After the healing comes the conquest of love. Muslims are not the enemy. Sinners are not the enemy. Satan is the enemy.
At first we will be a rag-tag army. Vicious enemies will come against us but we will never abandon the struggle to place the light of Jesus’ love in the lampstand of the world.
Our weaknesses do not matter. We are earthen vessels, but held by Jesus. Let us work to establish Jesus’ Universal Kingdom of Love. If you believe that the reign of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart will cover the whole world, it will take place.”
we will harness for GOD the energies of LOVE and then…
for the second time in the history of the world
man will have discovered
FIRE
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. He served as a retreat director and confessor to St. Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by St. Pope John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. He is a founding member of the Pope Leo XIII Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians, and other religious leaders.
Sister Cor Immaculatum Heffernan, IHM is a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton, PA. “ She holds several degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in English/Art and a Master of Science degree in Counseling, both from Marywood; a Master of Arts degree in Sculpture from the University of Notre Dame; and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from Syracuse University. Her multi-faceted life is in itself a masterpiece: she is a teacher, a mentor, and a consultant; she is a sculptor, a harpist, a calligrapher, and a creator of mosaics; she is a counselor, a spiritual director, and above all, she is a servant of God to others”.
In this episode, Dr. Lilles discusses the Fifth Mansions Chapter 4 of the “Interior Castle” which covers:
TREATS OF HOW GOD SUSPENDS THE SOUL IN PRAYER BY A TRANCE, ECSTASY OR RAPTURE, WHICH I BELIEVE ARE ALL THE SAME THING. GREAT COURAGE REQUIRED TO RECEIVE EXTRAORDINARY FAVOURS FROM HIS MAJESTY.
1. The spiritual espousals. 2. The prayer of union resembles a betrothal. 3. Before the spiritual nuptials temptations are dangerous. 4. The great good done by souls faithful to these graces. 5. Religious subject to the devil’s deceptions. 6. Satan’s strata-gems. 7. Why they are permitted. 8. Prayer and watchfulness our safeguards. 9. God’s watchfulness over such souls. 10. Progress in virtue. 11. Insignificance of our actions compared with their reward. 12. St. Teresa’s motives for writing on prayer.
Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of St. Elisabeth of the Trinity.
God has not left us orphans… but has given us gifts in Baptism and Confirmation, gifts for us to use to minister to others, to teach, to heal, to preach, to serve…
Awaiting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the first disciples were had perfectly
accepted and made fruitful the singular grace with which importantly, the grace of being the Mother of God. All of the Church’s children can admire her complete docility to the action of the Holy Spirit: faultless docility in faith and transparent humility. Mary, therefore, testifies fully to the obedient and faithful reception of every gift of the Holy Spirit.
Moreover, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, the Virgin Mary, by her maternal charity, “cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and cares, until they are led into the happiness of their true home”.[117] Since she “let herself be guided by the Holy Spirit on a journey of faith towards a destiny of service and fruitfulness, today we look to her and ask her to help us proclaim the message of salvation to all and to enable new disciples to become evangelizers in turn”.[118]
For this reason, Mary is recognized as the Mother of the Church and we, powerful intercession, the charisms, abundantly bestowed by the Holy Spirit among the faithful, may be received with docility and bear fruit for the life and mission of the Church and for the good of the world.
The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, in the Audience granted to the undersigned
Cardinal Prefect on 14 March 2016, approved the present Letter, adopted in the Plenary Session of this Congregation, and ordered its publication.
Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, May
15, 2016, the Solemnity of Pentecost.
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. He served as a retreat director and confessor to St. Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by St. Pope John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. He is a founding member of the Pope Leo XIII Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians, and other religious leaders.
Sister Cor Immaculatum Heffernan, IHM is a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton, PA. “ She holds several degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in English/Art and a Master of Science degree in Counseling, both from Marywood; a Master of Arts degree in Sculpture from the University of Notre Dame; and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from Syracuse University. Her multi-faceted life is in itself a masterpiece: she is a teacher, a mentor, and a consultant; she is a sculptor, a harpist, a calligrapher, and a creator of mosaics; she is a counselor, a spiritual director, and above all, she is a servant of God to others”.
Master Avila was not a university professor, although he had organized and served as the first rector of the University of Baeza. He held no chair in theology, but gave lessons in sacred Scripture to lay people, religious and clerics.
He never set forth a systematic synthesis of his theological teaching, yet his theology was prayerful and sapiential. In his Memorial II to the Council of Trent, he gives two reasons for linking theology and prayer: the holiness of theological knowledge, and the welfare and upbuilding of the Church. As befitted a true humanist endowed with a healthy sense of realism, his was a theology close to life, one which answered the questions of the moment and did so in a practical and understandable way.
The teaching of John of Avila is outstanding for its quality and precision, and its breadth and depth, which were the fruit of methodical study and contemplation together with a profound experience of supernatural realities. His abundant correspondence was soon translated into Italian, French and English.
For more visit Vatican.va
Dr. Matthew E. Bunson is a Register senior editor and a senior contributor to EWTN News. For the past 20 years, he has been active in the area of Catholic social communications and education, including writing, editing, and teaching on a variety of topics related to Church history, the papacy, the saints, and Catholic culture. He is faculty chair at Catholic Distance University, a senior fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, and the author or co-author of over 50 books including The Encyclopedia of Catholic History, The Pope Encyclopedia, We Have a Pope! Benedict XVI, The Saints Encyclopedia and best-selling biographies of St. Damien of Molokai and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.
What are philanthropic groups like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation doing in Africa? This week, we discuss Cardinal Sarah’s take on ideological colonialism in “The Day Is Now Far Spent”.
This discussion is part of the FORMED Book Club—an online community led by Fr. Joseph Fessio and Joseph Pearce that reads and discusses a different book each month. Go to formedbookclub.ignatius.com to sign up for free!
Robert Cardinal Sarah calls The Day Is Now Far Spent his most important book. He analyzes the spiritual, moral, and political collapse of the Western world and concludes that “the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril.”
A cultural identity crisis, he writes, is at the root of the problems facing Western societies. “The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations.”
While making clear the gravity of the present situation, the cardinal demonstrates that it is possible to avoid the hell of a world without God, a world without hope. He calls for a renewal of devotion to Christ through prayer and the practice of virtue.
Episode 13 -The Way of Mystery: The Eucharist and Moral Living– the spiritual life and moral living… understanding the journey through the Purgative and Illuminative Way and their role in the moral life.
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha.
The Vatican II documents remind us that the spiritual journey is not made in a vacuum, that God has chosen to save us, not individually, but as The People of God. The Eucharist must help Christians to make their choices by discerning out of Christ’s paschal mystery. For this process to take place, however, Christians must first understand how the Eucharist puts them in touch with Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and what concrete implications being in touch with this mystery has for their daily lives.
“Modern man has amnesia. Even the darkest pages of history must not be forgotten.” The panel takes on chapter 7 “Where Is the World Headed?” of Cardinal Robert Sarah’s 2019 book “The Day Is Now Far Spent”.
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. He served as a retreat director and confessor to St. Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by St. Pope John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. He is a founding member of the Pope Leo XIII Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians, and other religious leaders.
In this episode, Dr. Lilles discusses the Fifth Mansions Chapter 4 of the “Interior Castle” which covers:
For other audio recordings of various spiritual classics you can visit the 
