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Mission San Antonio de
Padua
Though located off the beaten path in the midst of a military reservation, Mission San Antonio de Padua offers many rewards to the traveler of today. Almost completely restored, it spreads out like a miniature city in the midst of an oak-studded valley.
The Old Mission San Antonio de Padua was founded by Fr. Junípero Serra, a Franciscan Padre, in 1771. Nearly all of the story of San Antonio is a glad one of acceptance, prosperity, and good will. In its prime, the mission was the home of thirteen hundred Indians, who worked at a score of handicrafts, produced bountiful crops, and herded some 17,000 livestock. It is the third of the California Missions and is still active as a parish church to serve the people of the surrounding area.
In the Summer of 1771, Father Junípero Serra set out from Carmel with two padres, some sailors, and neophytes to found the new spot in the Santa Lucia Mountains that had caught Portolá's eye when he had passed through the area two years before. After a laborious trek of twenty-five leagues, Serra's party reached the site, a pleasant basin well wooded with live oaks, alders, and willow, which they called Los Robles (the oaks), and they pitched camp near a stream that Father Serra christened Rio de San Antonio. When the mules were unloaded, he hung a bell
on a tree, started ringing it and calling, "Oh ye gentiles! Come, come to the holy
church!" His associates reminded him that there was no church, and no Indians in
sight. Serra explained that he just wanted to "give vent to my heart which desires
that this bell might be heard all over the world!" A bit later, an old Indian woman came to the encampment. She asked to be baptized—thereby astonishing the padres. They hadn't been there long enough for her to know what baptism was, much less develop a desire to participate. She said that her father had told her a
story about a man wearing robes who had appeared to him on four occasions and told him of
Christianity. The story was related to a well-known Southwest legend. There, in 1620,
early missionaries were surprised to find Indians who apparently were well-informed about
the Catholic Church. The padres checked this and learned of a nun in Spain who said she
and others had made many visits, through supernatural teleportation, to the Indians.
Though she never left Spain, she backed up her bizarre story with accurate details about
Southwest locations and occurrences.
The new organ at Mission San Antonio is a Chamber Series model C-6c. This 2-manual console meets all of the American Guild of Organists specifications and provides both beauty and versatility to the Mission and its services.
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