WHAT WAS INSIDE THE MISSION?

It's been fun to see how they built the Mission and what it looked like from the outside. You might wonder, though, what sort of things they had inside of it.

We've been very lucky, because many things that were in the old Mission have survived through all of these years. They are still there and you can come see them for yourselves at the Mision Galeria. Let's look at a few of them right now.

There was very beautiful art in the old Mission. Of course, since it was a church, it was religious art. They had many pictures and statues of the Saints and of Jesus and Mary. The Spanish call these "Santos," which means "Saints." Here's a statue of Michael, the Archangel. You can click on it to make it bigger.

Do you see how he's holding a sword? That's because Catholics believe that it was Michael who drove the Devil out of Heaven. He's also the Patron Saint of soldiers.

These statues were very beautiful and were made with great love and attention to detail. After they were carved, they were carefully painted and then polished, so that they seem to glow. This is a statue of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Click on it to make it bigger and just look how her gown is outlined in that beautiful gold. Isn't that wonderful?

Of all of the statues from the Mission, though, we think that this is our very favorite. This is also a statue of Mary. If you click on it to make it bigger, you can see that she must have been holding something when the statue was first made. Perhaps she was holding the baby Jesus. What do you suppose happened to what she was holding? Well, that's an interesting story.

We all have troubles sometimes, don't we? Someone we love may be sick or perhaps we just need some help. We might go to our Church and pray for that help. In the days of the old Mission, the people could actually take one of the statues home with them, if they were having trouble. They could keep it there in their houses and ask it to bless them. They think that this may be what happened to the figure that Mary was holding. Perhaps someone took it home to bless their family and then never brought it back. We know that many, many people have prayed to this statue of the Virgin Mary. So many people have touched her that her knees actually shine from all of the hands.

There are, of course, statues of Jesus, too. Here are a couple of our favorites. You can click on them to make them bigger.

The one on the left is Baby Jesus in His crib. Isn't he beautiful and sweet? The statue on the right is Jesus crucified to save our souls. Both of these statues were in the old Mission and are still here for you to see.

They had paintings in the Mission, too. Some of them were quite colorful and were done in the style of the European painters. If you'll click on the picture, you can see what one of them looked liked. There's quite a lot going on in that picture, isn't there? Angels and cherubs and Mary, all together. It shows Mary being taken into heaven.

Here's another picture of Mary that's done in quite a different style. This is the style that the Santos painters used and it's much more typical of Mission art. If you click on it, you can see that the painting is much simpler and there isn't so much going on it. This shows the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is the Patroness of all of the Americas. We think that she's quite beautiful, too. Which style do you like best?

These are just a few of the paintings and statues that you can see at the Mission today. They also have some very special clothes that the Padres used to wear in Church. They're called, "vestments." Would you like to see some pictures of the vestments? Just click on the bell and we'll show you.

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