Spiritual Fishing

Some things never change. When Father Junipero Serra became acquainted with Californians in the sixties (1760’s), he wrote: “One thing about these poor people that causes misgivings, and that a person has to be on the lookout for when he goes among them is their intense desire or mania for clothes or trinkets.” As I walked from Ventura to the mission that Father Serra's compadres founded in Santa Barbara, I noticed that Californians not only love clothes and trinkets but really nice homes. My coveting heart made me want to interpret the ten commandments very literally so that I wouldn’t have to count these homes among those belonging to my neighbor. Maybe it’s because I, myself, am a third-generation Californian. Or, maybe it’s because I am a human being. And, if Father Serra was anything like the other Franciscan friars who helped establish the missions here, even the vow of poverty was not a radical renunciation of all wealth like that of St. Francis of Assisi. In essence, they still had access to the immense riches of the Church, even if they didn’t own any of it themselves. Back in Spain, they may have been looked upon as paupers, but here in Alta California, the Chumash people were bedazzled by all that the friars brought with them. It was tempting, then, to use this material wealth as a means of getting local people to cooperate, or even to convert. In one document from that era, Father Francisco Pangua referred to this wealth as “ the means and the bait for spiritual fishing.” Another Spanish Visitor-General wrote that he wanted well-adorned churches “so that by this means they might be induced to embrace our Holy Faith.” Their assumption, it seemed, was that the Chumash people could be bought. I guess that isn’t so surprising. In many ways, the Franciscans, themselves, had been bought by the king of Spain do his work of colonizing California. And, if truth be told, we all have our price. Is it not the case, for example, that we all have some kind of “intense desire” within us that leads us to compromise our ethics or even our faith in order to get what we want? It might not be clothes or trinkets that attract us. It might not even be material things or monetary wealth, but all of us, I believe, can be bought if we are not given the wisdom and the power to resist. So, I end the day with a simple prayer: “God, help us!