When Pope Francis canonizes Blessed Junípero Serra
Sept. 23 at a ceremony at the Basilica of the National Shrine
of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, an Arlington
diocesan staff member, John Knutsen, and his wife, Colleen,
will share a sense of satisfaction at the creation of the new
saint.
Blessed Junípero was born in 1713 on the island of
Majorca off the coast of Spain. He became a Franciscan in
1730 and was ordained a priest in 1738.
In 1749, he left Spain to become a missionary in Mexico,
landing in Vera Cruz. He walked 250 miles from Vera Cruz to
Mexico City, a pattern of walking, even with painful leg
ulcers, and preaching, that he would continue in his
missionary work from Baja Mexico through Alta California (now
the state of California.)
Blessed Junípero died in 1784 at the second mission he
founded, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel, Calif. He
is buried under the sanctuary that is home to the National
Shrine to Blessed Junípero Serra.
His legacy, sometimes a matter of controversy, can be seen in
the maps of the Golden State. All told, he founded nine
missions from Mexico to Carmel.
“He ushered in a new springtime of evangelization in those
immense territories, extending from Florida to California,
which, in the previous 200 years, had been reached by
missionaries from Spain,” said Pope Francis in May in an
address honoring Blessed Junípero at the North
American College in Rome.
Knutsen is a native Californian, while his wife was a
transplant moving to California when she was 18. They met as
graduate students at the Dominican School of Philosophy and
Theology in Berkeley. They both went on to teach at the Serra
Catechetical Institute in the Diocese of Oakland.
The couple’s first date was Mass at the San Carlos Borromeo
de Carmelo Mission chapel. Knutsen later proposed to Colleen
at the mission, and they married there in 2007.
Knutsen, coordinator of adult faith formation for the
diocese, said that Blessed Junípero is an example of
tireless evangelizing.
“As a Californian, I’ve always had a special devotion to
(Blessed Junípero), even more so now that I work in
evangelization and adult faith formation,” he said.
The couple will not be in the crowd of pilgrims at the shrine
Sept. 23, but their thoughts will be with the “Apostle of
California.”
“My prayer on the day will be a plea for a new outpouring of
the Holy Spirit upon this country, that through the
intercession of St. Junípero Serra all Catholics in
America might come to understand their call to be
missionaries in our own time and place,” said Knutsen.
