In Quest of Serrana

Extract

When Father Bartolomé Lledó, parish priest of St. Peter’s Church, Petra, Mallorca, entered another name into the baptismal register on Nov. 24, 1713, he automatically became the originator of “Serrana” as we will henceforth call Serra literature. He wrote but five succinct lines in current Mallorquín and no doubt looked upon it as a routine though obligatory task. The subject of his entry might have turned out to be no more than a God-fearing, industrious Mallorcan farmer and thus the body of Serrana would have remained just five lines of Mallorquín. But by the time another priest, Father Francisco Palou, on Sept. 5, 1784, at the Indian mission of San Carlos de Monterey, in California, wrote an unusually long death record in the libro de difuntos, events fraught with significance in Church and State had occurred. Miguel Joseph Serra had died as Fray Junipero Serra, founder and Presidente of the California missions. Seventy full and energetic years had passed, packed with thoughtful plans, arresting drama, and ceaseless activity in which oratory, authorship and practical administration were happily blended. Seventy years of Serrana had come into existence.