The Missionaries

Subject: The Missionaries Sat 26 May 2007, 11:47 pm

Here is a place in which to remember the missionaries who left what was known and familiar to them in order to bring the Christian faith to the land we now call, 'Texas.' Their names are many, and their sacrifices were great. Most of the missionaries followed in the path of Saint Francis of Assisi .... a gentle man, who would have loved the Indian peoples who were living in our forests, plains, canyons and prairies. Might the Indian peoples whom the Spanish missionaries met have been living anywhere else in Texas? Of course! We also have mountainous, brushy and coastal regions in which people lived, and into which the missionaries ventured.

Let us begin a roll call of the missionaries who brought the Christian faith to Texas:

Fray Marcos de Mena (ca. 1554)

Fray Alonso de Benavides (ca. 1629)

Fray Damien Massanet (ca. 1689)

Fray Francisco de Jesus Maria Casanas (ca. 1691)

Fray Francisco Hidalgo (ca. 1693)

Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus (1716)

We are beginning our chronology of the many, sandled steps by which the Cross made its way into our state, but others added their footprints to the ancient, Indian trails already traced -- between these Fathers and after. How lucky are we to have the chance to learn about such caring priests, and to seek out their paths!

There is more to come, more before, and always ... more to discover.

Holly

Subject: Re: The Missionaries Thu 15 Nov 2007, 8:52 am

In recent years, the missionaries who journeyed from central Mexico -- usually after having spent their first decades of life in Spain -- to the northern provinces which now comprise the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, have received some bad press. No, they were not angelic beings, but men of their own times and particular world-view. Yet in most cases, these Franciscan friars (and sometimes, Jesuit priests) truly loved the native people who they came to serve and lead to God. They sacrificed and suffered, and not infrequently gave up their own lives in the course of their missions. The paragraph below -- taken from, 'Missions of Texas,' by Herbert Malloy Mason, Jr. (Oxmoor House, 1974) -- provides a brief overview of what the missionary calling entailed.

"To the younger members of the [Franciscan] Order in Spain who felt the call for missionary work in the New World, the prospect of journeying there could daunt all but the hardiest. The transportation cost had to be borne by the Franciscan friar alone, and even after he reached Mexico City, his expenses were half again his annual stipend .... He had to pay for his own vestments and church furniture. One assigned by his superiors to some remote place in the wilderness, the friar set off on foot to walk fifty, one hundred, or three hundred miles under the broiling sun of summer or through the howling northers of winter. Food could be an offering of mouse-meat wrapped inside a corn tortilla -- or nothing at all. A young brother of the Order had to learn the language of his new parishioners from [sometimes] unwilling teachers and laboriously try to reverse the process and teach them necessary phrases in Spanish and Latin." (page 25)

Also, the following resources are still accessible online through the web-site of the 'Texas Almanac:'

http://www.texasalmanac.com/history/highlights/franciscan/

http://www.texasalmanac.com/history/highlights/spanish-missions/

http://www.texasalmanac.com/history/highlights/mission/

http://www.texasalmanac.com/history/highlights/religion/
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves

Subject: The Venerable Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus Mon 02 Jun 2008, 6:07 pm

Below is a link to a wonderful collection of pages detailing the life, faith and work of the saintly Father Antonio Margil (1657-1726), who perhaps is best- known in our state as the founder of San Antonio's Mission San Jose. That he was ~ but he was and gave so much more (despite his own self-perception of being "nothingness itself"):

http://www.traditioninaction.org/Margil/mainpage.html

From the Handbook of Texas online:

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/MM/fma45.html
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves