Sunday at the Mission

I spent this last weekend in Tubac with my Mom, helping her take care of my Aunt. My Aunt has been very sick this last month, and my Mom has had to stay with her constantly. It was a very interesting experience. Tubac is a very small town, filled with artist shops and expensive houses. Friday and Saturday my Mom and I explored some of the shops, and Sunday morning I got up relatively early and went exploring alone. About two miles South of Tubac is the Tumacacori Spanish Mission. The mission was started in the 1750s, and abandoned around 1848. It’s since been partially restored, and is now under the care of the National Park Service. I’ve been to many of the California missions, but this mission is very different. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, and doesn’t receive nearly the amount of traffic as San Gabriel, or San Juan Capistrano. In fact, the entire time I was there I only encountered one small family.

I wandered around the grounds for awhile taking pictures, and then decided to spend some time inside the sanctuary. The NPS interpreter had loaned me a frayed and crumpled pamphlet, which told about the history of the place, and about the Franciscans who built it. If walls could only speak…

I’m not Catholic, but I do have a great deal of respect for the traditions which have been observed for millennia, by many men and women who were more devoted to God than I could ever hope to be. Even if my views and understandings of Christianity are completely incompatible with theirs, I respect and admire their devotion to what they believe to be the Truth.


I sat on an old bench in the nave and read the journal entries of the monks who had carved the mission out of the wilderness. According to the pamphlet, two of them had been interred beneath the chancel. The mission had literally been built with their sweat and blood. It was convicting on many levels. Unlike modern missionaries, these people never hoped to retire. They lived and died at their posts. To think of devoting one’s entire life so completely to the spreading of the gospel; it’s an amazing thought.