Archive for the ‘Mission San Xavier del Bac’ Tag
Tom Walking to Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson — Image by kenne
My hiking buddy, Tom Markey, has been home from the hospital and rehab for about ten days.
This past Sunday, I took him for a short walk in the Sweetwater Wetlands Park, and yesterday
he called me to see if I would go with him and Pat to Mission San Xavier del Bac — he wanted to light
some candles ahead of his third chemo session today.
Tom is a Quaker, so I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to ask him, “What’s a Quaker doing
lighting candles in a Catholic Church?” He replied, “I’ll take whatever help I can get — what have I got to lose.”
Tom is a very spiritual man.
While at the mission, I also lit some candles for Joy’s younger sister, Janna, who passed away yesterday
from a cardiac arrest. May she rest in peace.
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Boy In Church Window — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Boy in church window
Occupied in childhood things
Adults pray to God.
— kenne
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Our good friends from Porter, Texas, Ken and Mary Harris,
spent several days with us before continuing the western swing through Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.
— kenne
Joy, Mary, and Ken, Mission San Xavier del Bac
Mary, Ken, and Kenne In Sabino Canyon Recreational Area
Mary On Mt. Lemmon
“Sweet is the memory of distant friends!
Like the mellow rays of the departing sun,
it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.”
– Washington Irving
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Mission San Xavier del Bac — Image by kenne
Our good friends Ken and Mary Harris, from Porter, Texas have been our guest since Thursday,
which means we have an excuse to visit some of our favorite place in southern Arizona.
Above, Joy and Mary are standing on the walk in front of the Mission San Xavier del Bac.
Joy, Mary and Ken
Images by kenne
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The Right Place — Photo-Artistry by kenne
How will you know when
you are in the right place?
The secret is out!
. . . in a place where
each question
contains the answer.
You will know
that place
when you have
the right feeling —
The secret is out!
Or is it?
What to do
when the feeling
is missing?
. . . sadly,
your place
is not the right place.
kenne
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Desert Mission Scene — Digital Art by kenne
“We’re all just walking each other home.”
― Ram Dass
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White Dove of the Desert (Mission San Xavier del Bac, First Posted April 2011) — Computer Art by kenne
‘‘San Xavier del Bac, known as a rancheria since the seventeenth century and as a mission since 1720 or 1732, was, in June 1768, committed to the care of Padre Francisco Garces, who was its minister for eight or ten years, but whose successors are not named in any record that I have seen. The neophytes were scattered and had forgotten their doctrine, so it is said, but they consented to return if not compelled to work. The mission was destroyed before the end of the year by Apaches, who killed the native governor and captured two soldiers, the padre and most of the neophytes being absent at the time. In several subsequent raids, the mission livestock disappeared, but after 1772 lost ground was more than regained, though Padre Garces * * * was, for a large part of the time, engaged in northern explorations. The official report of 1772 shows a population of 270 on the registers and describes the church as moderately capacious but poorly supplied with furniture and vestments. During this period, all the churches of Pimeria Alta are described as adobes, covered with wood, grass, and earth. Arricivita, writing in 1791, mentions on one page that the Franciscans have built here adobe houses for the natives and walls for defense against the Apaches; but though specifying somewhat minutely the various churches that had been built or repaired, he says nothing of such work at Bac. In a similar statement on another page, however, he includes Bac and Tucson among the places where churches of brick had been built. Yet I think the chronicler would not have dismissed with so slight a notice the magnificent structure still standing at San Xavier, which has elicited many a description from modern visitors. The church is said to bear the date of 1797, which is presumably that of its completion. The building, or rebuilding, was probably begun soon after the date of the reports on which Arricivita based his work and completed it in the final decade of the century. * * * The establishment seems to have had no minister and to have been practically abandoned from about 1828, though the Papago ex-neophytes are said to have cared for the building to some extent in later years.’’
This is the oldest mission in Arizona or California and today stands as a monument to the early fathers’ industry, religious zeal, and architectural skill.
“Tucson, as we have seen, Tucson is first mentioned in 1763 as a rancheria visita of Bac, which had been abandoned for the most part. In the last years of Jesuit control, however, it had 331 Indians, more or less, under the control of the missionaries. In his report of 1772, Reyes describes San Jose de Tucson as a visita of Bac, without church or padre’s house, on a fertile site where a large number of gentile and Christian Indians—not registered, but estimated at over 200 families—had congregated. Many of these seem to have been subsequently scattered; at least Anza found only eighty families of Pimas in 1774. Says Arricivita: ‘‘The Apaches have always sought to destroy a small rancheria at Tucson, it being the point of entry for their irruptions; but by the efforts of Padre Garces, there was built a pueblo, with a church, house for the padre, and a wall for defense, and it is to-day, a presidio of Spaniards.’’’’
From this, it will be seen that Padre Garces made Tucson a walled town, it being the first and only walled city in the United States.
— from History of Arizona — Volume I
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Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona — Image by kenne
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Easter Along the Borderlands — Image by kenne
When you’re at the mission
Sixty miles north of Nogales
And it’s Easter time too
It’s so easy to put on airs
At the place where
Father Kino drink the
Spring water that once was
Near the banks of the
Santa Cruz River.
On the first Friday after Easter
The Tohono O’odham of the
San Xavier Reservation
Conduct a candlelight parade
Just as the setting sun kisses
The white dove of the desert
Where she awaits the coming
of the “Excellent Builder”
to complete the second tower.
— kenne
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A Panorama View Down Through Madera Canyon In The Santa Rita Mountains South of Tucson, Arizona.
(Note the light color of mining tailings surrounding ponded water.)
— Image by kenne
We Scar The Things We Love
Always there is something worth trekking
in the Sonoran Desert.
Sometimes the treks start early in the morning,
driving across the Tucson basin over
occasional low water crossings and cattle guards
on narrow roads, stopping for big yellow buses.
A canyon road leads out of Green Valley,
a quite peaceful community
along the banks of the Santa Cruz River
covered with oaks and walnut trees
and a rich history with the Tumacacori Mission
to the south and San Xavier del Bac to the north.
Crossing one-lane bridges through a grassland bajada,
the road climbs toward Madera Canyon
nestled between Mt. Wrightson and Mt. Hopkins
on the eastern slop of the Santa Rita Mountains,
forming one of the Sonoran desert’s Sky Islands,
an oasis above this bowl-shaped canyon.
Although some are called “Friends of Madera Canyon”
all visitors, be they hikers, birders, walkers,
or just those relaxing at one of the beautiful vistas
share a love of nature and being outdoors,
forming a friendship that helps bond
memoirs of a shared love.
“All the while jumbled memories flirt out on their own,”
intruding on nature’s beautiful vistas
where a river once ran through, now shadowed
by a high wall of tailings surrounding a pond,
altering nature’s beautiful vistas above the canyon,
producing lasting scars to the sky above, the earth below.
— kenne
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Mission San Xavier del Bac — Images kenne
The White Dove Of The Desert
Imagine this:
Stranger
On horseback
Dark flowing rode
Moving in the breeze
Crossing
The desert southwest
Entering
The village of the
Desert people –
Tohono O’odham
Friendly people
Bonding
With the stranger –
Father Kino
Jesuit priest
Establishing
Third mission —
(Twenty-four total)
Upon which
The current church
Was built
Century later
Reflecting
Baroque architecture
Blossoming
In the desert blue sky
The White Dove
Of the Desert.
kenne
32.270209
-110.860703
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Justin and Joy at The Mission San Xavier del Bac — Images by kenne
As is often the case, daybreak brought a beautiful sunrise with a Tucson blue sky. We were scheduled to pick up Justin at the airport (9:00 a.m.). Before leaving for the airport, we got word that he had missed his flight from Phoenix to Tucson, now his arrival time would be 11:00 a.m. — not a problem.
After arriving we learned that it had been cloudy and rainy in Phoenix, which somewhat explained why our skies were getting cloudy.
We left the airport for a short drive to the Mission San Xavier del Bac, after which we had planned to drive to Tubac for lunch. While at the mission, the weather changed for the worse, with rain clouds moving in and the temperature dropping. The wind was really beginning to pickup, which is why Justin is wearing the hood and Joy his cap.
So, we went to the Barrio Brewery for a beer and “Sonora Hotdog” followed by a visit to the De Grazia Gallery in the Sun, during which time it had been raining, with a 40 degree temperature at 4:00 p.m.
Tomorrow will be better.
kenne
32.270209
-110.860703
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White Dove of The Desert: Mission San Xavier del Bac — Image by kenne
32.270209
-110.860703
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Becoming is Superior to Being 