For years the saintly Serra's body was buried under a pile of debris,
but his "sepulchre has become glorious" in spite of all. And since the
restoration of this mission, the feast of Saint Charles Borromeo, (its
Patron Saint) has again been celebrated here every November the
twenty-fourth, and a relic of Saint Charles which Father Junipero Serra
brought from Spain, is as of old carried in procession. While this is of
course a Catholic festival, reverent visitors of various creeds attend
it. The mission is guarded by a care-taker, living in the premises of
what remains of the old mission orchard.
It was also due to Father Casanova, that Mrs. Leland Stanford donated,
in 1890, the Serra Monument[3] which crowns a slope just above the spot
where this wonderful missionary said his first Mass in Monterey.
We cannot give sufficient credit to Reverend Raymond Mestres, the
present parish priest of Monterey, and a Spaniard from the Province of
Catalonia, like Junipero Serra and many of the early missionaries. Father
Mestres has given time, energy and noble efforts unstintingly to
perpetuate the memory of Junipero Serra and to more fully restore not
only San Carlos Mission and San Carlos Church, but is encouraging a
movement to restore if possible all the California Missions according
to their traditional and historical plans; may his great enterprise be
blessed with all the radiance of crowning success!
We will have ample reason to speak more of Father Mestres' good work
elsewhere in this sketch, hence we will pass into Monterey itself.
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