So was the Franciscan outreach to the Payomkawichum people of what is now northern San Diego and southern Orange Counties called by those who settled in its wake.  The proper name of the outpost is Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, after the sainted King Louis IX, of France.  The Payom became known to their European overseers as “Luisenos”.

The mission, located roughly halfway between San Diego and San Juan Capistrano, became a major administrative center for the Franciscans, and, in time, for the Spanish army in California.  It lies today in the eastern part of the military and tourist-oriented community we call Oceanside.  Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is indeed a fine complement to the many attractions of Oceanside’s very attractive beachfront.  It is also far enough off the main tourist routes, that one may walk for several hours in peace and quiet, meditating in the cemetery grounds or in the Retreat Garden, so long as you don’t disturb the paying guests of the retreat.

I first went to the cemetery grounds, finding myself alone with the spirits of Luisenos and Espanoles long departed.  Monsignor O’Malley revitalized San Luis Rey as a parish church, about a century ago.  So more recently departed residents of east Oceanside are laid to rest here as well.

The fountain provides a nice spot for the living to offer their thoughts.

Like many old Spanish missions, this establishment has a large historic church, in need of repair.  Fortunately, the repairs are well underway.  They don’t lend themselves to eye-popping photography, but that will come later.

Outside the historic church, features common to the Spanish architecture of the 18th Century are found in abundance.  Here are the exposed beams of the outer walkway’s ceiling, both rounded and square arches and the wooden frame covering a church window.

The meditation garden in the Retreat Section is shown above, lower left, and below.

A water cistern is found in the middle of the meditation garden, and was used to sustain the earliest cultivated flora at Mission San Luis Rey.

In the book, “The Bridge of San Luis Rey”, Junipero speculates that there is a world of the living and a world of the dead.  He concludes that the bridge between the two worlds is Love.  There was a fair amount of love, and service, shown and accomplished in several of the Spanish missions- as much as these were tempered by elements of self- interest and national greed.  Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, along with the other Spanish missions I have seen in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida, shows mostly the former.