The history of Eucharistic Adoration in the diocese of Orange can be said to have begun with the Franciscan missionaries led by St Junipero Serra in July of 1769. While St Junipero Serra remained in San Diego and founded the first mission there on July 16, 1769 he sent other priests to Northern California.
On July 22, 1769, the feast of St Mary Magdalene, in what would become the city of San Clemente, two sick native girls were baptized. These missionaries offered Mass and began missionary work in what would later by Santa Ana, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente. Two hundred forty-eight years later on July 22, 2017, this website you are reading went live asking both St Mary Magdalen and St Junipero Serra to intercede for us that Eucharistic Adoration will grow in the Diocese of Orange, for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls.
On November 1, 1776, the Mission of San Juan Capistrano by St Junipero Serra and today this mission holds the only chapel remaining where St Junipero Serra himself offered Mass. The chapel is still in use and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered there daily. Corpus Christi was an important feast at the California missions with records of Eucharistic Processions being held on that feast day.
The last public statement of St Junipero Serra, was heard the day before he died came as a result of his final walk to the Church to receive Holy Viaticum. St Junipero Serra sang the Eucharistic hymn “Tantum Ergo” with a resounding voice “high and strong as ever.” The next day the death bell tolled announcing to the people the death of St Junipero Serra.
It is based on the Eucharistic faith and zeal for souls of St Junipero Serra that the Diocese of Orange was built.
Formal, united Eucharistic Adoration in the diocese of Orange can trace its roots to 1977 when every parish in the diocese took on at least one day of 24 hour Eucharistic Adoration such that there would be at least one parish in the diocese on any given day adoring our Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
The primary prayer intention of this organized cross-diocesan Perpetual Adoration was for vocations.