The Great Texas Road Trip Thank-You Tour: 48. Mission Concepcion, San Antonio

It's impossible to get this right.  Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion de Acuna was moved to San Antonio in 1731 and completed in 1755, and in the 265 years since then, an immense city has grown up around it, evolving along with the world: transportation evolving from horses to cars and jet planes; communication evolving from letter to radio, to television and internet; and political jurisdiction over the mission switching from Spain to Mexico, to an independent Texas, to United States.  And yet, in all that time little has changed at Mission Concepcion itself except for the slow eroding of the bright frescos that once covered the exterior until the water-stained limestone bones became exposed.  However, inside, if you were to teleport there right now, you would witness an interior pretty much the same as if your were among the 150 Native American groups brought to the mission in the 1750s.  You would  be viewing the fresco paintings, which still decorate those same walls with only minor restoration.  Never have those walls been plastered over.  Never have the paintings been recreated from small existing fragments.  No, instead, those cheerful yellow walls have remained unchanged for generations of viewers, many which are members of the congregation of this still operating place of wonder and worship.  No wonder the place has been saved as part of both San Antonio Missions National Park and as a World Heritage Site.

The dome and chapel still maintain the original painted fresco

Yet, of course, mentally and spiritually, there is no way to get back and view it as those original Native American residents did.  Disease is not wiping out my people, my culture, my history--not yet, anyway.  I visited on my own terms, practicing my own religion.  I was neither rounded up as many were, nor was I refugee of tribal wars, as many more were.  I wasn't forced by either the Spanish nor by desperation to live within walls erected to isolate me from all that I once was.  Neither can I experience God as either the Spanish or Native Americans did then, no matter how religious I am, and no matter how strongly I have felt the influence of God in my life.  Although I know from personal experience that glimpses of the clear light of the divine are perceptible throughout all ages, we are fools if we believe our connection to the eternal is not colored by our particular experiences here on earth.  With all the changes in culture and science, there is simply no way to know God the same way He was known 250 years ago.  He may be everlasting and unchanged, but we are not.

Yet, I swear at Mission Concepcion there is enough of that past still floating around in the very air that although not literally transported back in time, one is so keenly aware of different lives, different modes of thinking, different modes of experiencing reality, it is frankly disorienting, and in that moment of confusion, perhaps one slips for moments out of that heavy-domed stone ego "I" and experiences something transcendent.

I know I did, and I didn't expect that at all.  While I was at Mission Conception I vanished for brief moments and walked among all humanity.

A pilgrimage to Mission Concepcion is both a religious and a human experience.  Where the divine and temporal intersect is where spirituality on earth is found.  Throughout history humankind has attempted to give thanks and connect with our source.  That is our common human heritage, and Mission Concepcion is simply a profound reminder of what it feels like to be part of the fabric of life.

Marci adding to the human story that is Mission Concepcion

References

City of San Antonio. San Antonio Missions: Mission Concepcion. 2018. 28 January 2020. <https://www.worldheritagesa.com/Missions/Mission-Concepci-oacuten>.

National Park Service. San Antonio Missions National Historic Park, Texas: Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña. 8 March 2016. 25 January 2020. <https://www.nps.gov/saan/learn/historyculture/conc_history1.htm>.