Restored California mission church is fully reopened

Grand reopenings don't always happen all at once. In the case of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, which was nearly destroyed in a July 2020 arson fire, its reintroduction to the public has happened gradually, carefully, in stages.

First, there was the closing of the mission's 250th anniversary Jubilee Year in September 2022, when the restored adobe church opened its doors for a single Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles -- only to close them again so that artisans could complete delicate restoration work on the church's interior.

This past Easter, celebration of Sunday Mass resumed, even while scaffolding covered the church's restored altarpiece, the crown jewel of the historic church.

Finally, on June 27, the scaffolding came down and the renovated church was ready for its first official closeup. More than 100 people -- a mix of parishioners, members of the Gabrieliño-Tongva tribe, benefactors, and staff involved in the restoration project -- were on hand to witness Archbishop Gomez bless the church's new interior, as well as a transformed mission museum.

After Archbishop Gomez blessed the altarpiece, the ceremony moved outside, where tribal chief Anthony Morales led members of the Gabrieleño San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians in singing traditional welcome songs, while remembering the approximately 6,000 Gabrieleño-Tongva natives buried on mission grounds.

Then it was time to see the mission's museum, a "reimagined" version of its pre-fire predecessor featuring interactive displays, artwork from the mission era, readings from the letters of St. Junípero Serra, and maps detailing the tribal history of the Los Angeles Basin and its transformation following the arrival of the first Spanish missionaries and settlers.

Steven Hackel, a historian at UC Riverside and a well-known expert on the mission period in Southern California, worked as curator of the museum alongside Gabrieleño Tongva tribal member Yve Chavez.

In remarks at the outdoor ceremony, Hackel said the museum sought to "put a new emphasis on Native experiences in the mission through 1900," combining "visuals and sounds and interactives to suggest the varieties of Catholic experience at the mission and the persistence of Native belief and practice within an expanding Spanish and Mexican realm."

Several pieces in the collection are accompanied by scannable QR codes that direct viewers with smartphones to historical audio recordings, including a rare one of the Our Father recited in the Gabrieleño language.

One of the most striking features is a wall displaying the names of more than 7,000 natives whose names were recorded in baptismal records through 1848, along with the years of their birth and death, when possible.

At least a few of them are ancestors of Adela Garcia, a Gabrieleño tribe member who grew up coming to the mission with her family. She said seeing the restored mission "brings me happiness" after seeing it nearly destroyed three years ago.