Pilgrims walk 35 miles between missions to ‘stand up’ for St. Junípero Serra

As he walked along Pacific Coast Highway near Carpinteria, Greg Wood had fallen behind the group of 300 people he was supposed to be leading on the fourth annual St. Junípero Serra Walking Pilgrimage.

With the group 100 yards ahead, Wood found himself almost alone, except for the item in his hands: a reliquary holding a first-class relic of the pilgrimage’s namesake.

“Here we are,” Wood remembers thinking to himself. “We’re walking in your footsteps, we’re doing what you came to do, and we’re continuing your mission.”

Wood said he felt a “deep connection” in that moment with the saint, who inspired him to start the pilgrimage four years ago in the summer of 2020, when a wave of protests against racial injustice led some demonstrators in California to target and tear down statues of Serra.

But on the weekend of Aug. 10-11, the group of parents, nuns, monks, and kids who walked the 35 miles from Mission Santa Barbara to Mission Basilica San Buenaventura drew inspiration from the Spanish friar who endured all kinds of hardships to bring Christianity to California.  

“He’s the apostle of California,” one walker told Angelus after arriving in Ventura. “We’re living in a crazy upside-down distorted world … so you have to stand up and do something beautiful like have a pilgrimage in the honor of Junípero Serra.”

At the end of this year’s pilgrimage, the walkers were greeted by a special visitor: Archbishop José H. Gomez, who had come to celebrate Sunday evening Mass for them at San Buenaventura — founded by Serra in 1782 — before dedicating a symbol of Serra with a history of its own.

The 3,000-pound bronze statue had stood in front of Ventura City Hall since 1989, until it was removed for safety reasons amid the protests in 2020. But after more than three years of exhaustive conversations involving tribal leaders, San Buenaventura pastor Father Tom Elewaut, and city officials, the statue was brought out of storage and installed in the Ventura mission’s gardens last February.

“With so many other bad things that happened, it just tore my heart in half,” said Wood to the hundreds who gathered for the statue’s blessing after a Sunday evening Mass for the pilgrims. “We knew we had to stand up for what we know is true.”

Walkers shared Wood’s view.

Chick Kenney, a member of the “California Mission Walkers” club, came from Santa Ana with his wife, Christine. He was grateful to see the Serra statue brought to the mission, “where he can be revered as he should be.”

“I don’t get a sense that that’s all necessarily true,” said Kenney of accusations that Serra mistreated natives during the founding of the mission. “Bad things happen all over the place.”

The saint’s physical presence inspired walkers like Jeffrie and Stephanie Garcia, two sisters from Padre Serra Church in Camarillo. During their Saturday night stop at St. Joseph’s Church in Carpinteria — where pilgrims slept overnight in tents and were fed by local Knights of Columbus — one of the pilgrims stopped by with the relic of Serra he’d been carrying, offering them a few moments to pray with it.

“That was not something that I would normally do,” said Stephanie, who spent the weekend praying for a friend who’d died days earlier.

Salvatore Martello, a New York City native now living in Arizona, appreciated the chance to be “surrounded by so many other believers.

“Especially amidst what we see going on in the world, and all of us were focused on the same thing: God.”

Serra’s example also helped Martello endure the walk’s physical challenges. As Martello’s feet began to blister, he listened to fellow walker and St. John’s Seminary faculty member Father Ray Marquez talk about how Serra’s zeal to share the Gospel proved stronger than the painful ulcer on his leg that made walking almost painfully impossible during his travels across California and Mexico.  

“That was the motivation for me to continue on today, and I’m so glad I did,” said Martello.

Eleven-year-old June may have been the youngest pilgrim to walk all 35 miles. Starting out on the journey with her older sister, the realization hit her: There was no turning back.

But remembering that the 35 miles between missions was a small fraction of what Serra walked regularly put things in perspective. As the last few miles of the walk got especially difficult, she drew strength from praying the rosary with the rest of the group.

“Once you were there, you could either lay on the streets, or just go on,” laughed June, whose family are parishioners of St. Mary Magdalene Church in Camarillo.

When they finally arrived at San Buenaventura late Sunday afternoon, the local Knights of Columbus formed an honor guard for the pilgrims as they sang the words of Catholic artist Matt Maher’s “Lord, I Need You.” Then, they followed Archbishop Gomez in procession as he entered the Mission Basilica with the Blessed Sacrament, followed by a few moments of adoration as the mission choir chanted “Tantum Ergo” before Mass.

In his homily, Auxiliary Bishop Slawomir Szkredka thanked the pilgrims for their witness to Serra’s legacy, and for the prayer intentions they’d brought along. Then he quoted a line from a letter Serra wrote in 1769 detailing the difficulties of his mission in California: “But to a willing heart, everything is sweet.”

The nourishment offered by the Eucharist, Szkredka explained, leads to the kind of interior change that enabled Serra to fulfill his mission.

“We know that when we go out from the Eucharistic celebration, we will face hardships and difficulties and challenges. But we know that we go out with a heart of love, that we carry Jesus’ heart in us.”

Looking ahead, the walkers’ summer pilgrimage options include the next Serra pilgrimage as well as the recently announced 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, set to finish in LA in June. Martello, who celebrated his 28th birthday during the pilgrimage, said he can’t wait to bring friends from Arizona and New York next year for a piece of the real Serra experience — and the sense of community it creates.

“There’s a real spirit of camaraderie, like a big family,” said Wood. “It’s kind of like a managed chaos. We’re all in it together.”