Rose Brooks

Episode 491 – On A Mission: San Diego de Alcalá

The Mission San Diego de Alcalá was the 1st California mission, founded in 1769, and is also the southernmost in Alta California, the area that eventually became part of the U.S. Although the current building only dates to 1931, it is the repository of the mission’s history.

Raising the Cross for Spain. This original illustration came from the 1813 mission church. This copy was colorized in 2014.

Surviving records show only 16 baptisms of Tipai-Ipai natives in 1771, and those baptized continued to live in their own villages since the mission did not have enough food to support them. That brought to mind the Jesuit compound at Ste Marie Among the Hurons in Ontario, (dating to the 1600s) where the converted Huron were largely responsible for teaching the Jesuit clerics what crops would grow. Episode 133 Huron and Wendat. In San Diego, it was the natives who were “taught” farming techniques that allowed crops already familiar to the Franciscans to be grown. There didn’t seem to be much question that the indigenous people weren’t looking for new crops; they were already self-sufficient between foraging and hunting in the year-round mild climate, however records show that the Franciscans thought them “slothful”.

The mission’s peak years were 1797-1831. At the highest point, there were 1829 “neophytes” living there, and 30,000 animals (cattle and sheep), up from just 236 animals in 1773 (the first year of surviving records).

In 1775, the mission was destroyed by an Indian attack. There is a large white cross beside the church that marks the spot where Padre Luis Jayme became the first Catholic martyr of Alta California. Whether the Indians were intent simply on pillaging the mission, or on destruction, and whether he was “brutally murdered while uttering the cry “Love God, my children”” as is inscribed on the monument, or died accidentally in the blaze that consumed the wooden pole and dried reed mission, may be a matter of perspective. The usual expression is that history is written by the victors, but in the case of 1775, history was written – literally – by those capable of writing.

The first “real” church was built in 1813, although there had been 3 temporary structures before that. In 1834, the mission was secularized, and the church fairly quickly fell into ruin. During the years after the Mexican-American War, the mission site was used by the USArmy. In 1862, a proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln returned the site to the Catholic Church, but by the time of restoration in 1931, only the church façade and arcade remained standing.

The 46 foot Campanario (bell wall) is the mission’s most striking (no pun intended) feature. The bell wall is currently being restored, so we were unable to get close to the bells, or hear them.

The two large bells at the bottom have names. Lower right is the crown-topped bell called Ave Maria Purisima (Immaculate Mary), cast in Spain in 1802 and weighing 805 pounds. It was a gift of the King of Spain to the mission. The bell lower right is called Mater Dolorosa (Mother of Sorrows). It was re-cast by a San Diego ironworks in 1894 from fragments found at the mission.
Statue of Fr. Junipero Serra, the founder of the mission.

The church, named for St. Didacus (aka Diego) of Alcalá, a fifteenth century Spanish Franciscan, has held the designation of Minor Basilica since a 1976 edict by Pope Paul VI. That document is on display in the museum.

Touring the mission is only possible between 9 and 4 daily, since it is an active Roman Catholic Church of the diocese of San Diego, and holds masses daily at 7 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The 1935 church, replicating the 1815 building, is long and tall. Top: looking at the altar from the back of the church. Bottom: looking at the back of the church from about mid-way.

The interior is quite plain, as are most mission churches, but the few paintings, statues, and symbols decorating it are all really interesting. Some are new since the 1931 build, some date back to the 1813 structure, and a few are even mid 18th century.

The reredos/retabla – a structure against the wall behind the altar table with niches for holding statues.
At the very top of the retabla is a rare Old World image of God the Father.
In modern Catholic churches, only Christ is depicted.
Something else we’d never seen the like of was this 17th century Spanish Corpus Cristi with no arms. Literature at the mission suggested that his missing arms were to remind us that we, His people, are to be the arms of Christ.
The statues of Joseph and Mary in the niches on either side are both 19th century.
We always learn something new. I did not know that this kind of canopy (called an “umbraculum”) was a symbol identifying a church as a basilica. It is an honour bestowed on a church by a Pope, and is in the papal colours (red and white).

Not only the altar area, but also the side walls of the church had some interesting pieces. The 14 Stations of the Cross looked really old, but that is by design. They are 20th century copies of the originals that are at Mission San Luis Rey.

The baptismal font in the church is a replica of the one in which Father Junípero Serra was baptized in 1713 in Petra on the island of Majorca. Serra was the First Founding Father President and founder of the California missions.

In the courtyard outside the church is a meditation garden with some lovely statuary, including St Francis of Assisi above a small clear pool, and St Joseph.

Bottom right: another statue of Fr Junipero Serra

From the garden we walked through a passageway leading to the small mission museum. In addition to the expected traditional statuary, the wall is decorated with a quite beautiful but very modern mosaic depiction of the Stations of the Cross.

A more modern crucifix (with arms), and a plaster Piéta.
Very different, but quite emotional nonetheless.

When we were in San Antonio, Ted and I toured all 5 of the Spanish colonial missions. At the mission today we met a couple from Merced California, who were hoping to visit all of the California missions. This display in the museum showed a map and models of all of them. It would be quite a road trip!

An auxiliary chapel featured choir stalls adorned with painted coats of arms and… cattle? Sheep? No one seemed to know. We did learn, though, that no vegetable pigments were used anywhere in the church; all the colours were made from ground minerals.

Our last stop was in the second courtyard, at the fountain and the inactive archeological site excavating the convento (the friars’ residence).

It was an interesting place, but I couldn’t help comparing it to the magnificent Mission San Javier Del Bac just outside Tucson Arizona, which meant that naturally I had to go back and relive that visit. Episode 57 – Arizona Mission

Tomorrow we take a break, board the Blue Line trolley, and head to the big outlet mall in San Ysidro at the Mexican border to do some window shopping.

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