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Serra As California's Spiritual Founder
- St. Junípero Serra is a founding spiritual figure of California who established the first nine missions and named many Californian cities.
- His missionary work shaped place names like San Diego, Carmel, Santa Clara, and San Francisco and influenced regional culture.
Missions Combined Faith With Practical Skills
- Serra founded missions to evangelize and to teach agriculture so native peoples could escape cycles of feast and famine.
- He taught farming, herding, and life skills while evangelizing and personally risked his life serving Native Americans.
Pilgrimage To Guadalupe Left A Lifelong Wound
- Serra walked across Mexico to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and contracted a leg lesion that plagued him for life.
- Historians believe a bug-bite became a likely cancerous lesion that he carried from his mid-30s until his death.