Step into San Diego's Church of the Immaculate Conception and you're instantly insulated from the hum of tourists strolling up San Diego Avenue from the city's famous Old Town section.

You're also in good company. A steady stream of Catholics flow into this place; there's almost always someone here kneeling to pray or sitting to contemplate the striking crucifix behind the altar. Nor will you have to wait long before curious tourists stumble in, mistaking the church for one of the historic pit stops that dot the neighborhood. Once inside, they, too, pause to silently admire the bright interior, illuminated by long, pastel-tinted windows and the sunny mural behind the altar.

The tourists aren't completely in the wrong. This is, indeed, a historic structure—and not only because of its great age (great, at least, in terms of California history). Immaculate Conception is also connected to Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona, one of the best-known fictional accounts of old California.

And it's the place to be in far-southern California on Dec. 9, feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Dedicated in November 1858, this church dedicated to the Blessed Mother under that very TITLE is the oldest parish church in California: It was the first church established after the missions were secularized in the 1830s.

A prominent resident of the pueblo, Don Jose Aguirre, purchased a small adobe house with the proceeds of a lawsuit he'd won. This house was converted into a church, in which he was later buried. The mission's statues, vestments and four bells were transferred to Immaculate Conception.

Father Antonio Ubach, the second parish priest, had big dreams for San Diego—including a grand, Gothic parish church. Before 1870, the bishop of the Monterey-Los Angeles Diocese had laid the cornerstone for the new church on the site where Immaculate Conception now stands.

But as the area's population shifted and the funding began to dwindle, the brick walls only rose a few feet off the ground. It wasn't until 1914 that Father Joseph Mesney was able to pick up where his predecessor had left off—and, then, not before he undid some of the work that had already been completed. The bricks had stood exposed to the elements for 45 years, after all. He tore down the walls and had the bricks cleaned, then used them to build the soaring white church that stands today. This was dedicated by Archbishop John Cantwell, Los Angeles' first archbishop.

When the new Immaculate Conception opened for worship in 1917, it did so with the statues, bells and paintings of its old adobe predecessor.

Later these items were sent to other churches in California and Arizona, but Immaculate Conception still has tangible ties to San Diego history; two of Mission San Diego's original bells hang again at the mission, but a third one hangs in Immaculate Conception's bell tower. Meanwhile the façade, two pairs of elegant curves flanking the section on which hangs the Cross of Christ, recalls the façade of the mission.

Inside, even the windows draw visitors' thoughts back to the history of California's first non-native settlement. One bears the inscription, “In Memoria: Fr. Junipero Serra, by Friends.”

How fitting that the founder of California's first mission, San Diego de Alcala, should be memorialized in this San Diego church, which also holds an important place in California history.

The Real Ramona

In the parish garden, a kneeler rests behind a statue of St. Juan Diego, canonized by Pope John Paul II this past summer. Visitors can kneel here with him before a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who appeared to him more than five centuries ago.

As for the original Immaculate Conception, it stands just a short walk from the “new” church. Now that California has designated it a historical landmark, its entrance is barred so that visitors can look inside but not enter.

After the new church opened in 1917, the adobe chapel was used as a kindergarten. In 1922, 14 years after it was boarded up, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles transferred ownership of the chapel to the city of San Diego to allow its restoration under the Works Progress Administration. The chapel was rededicated in 1937 by Bishop Charles Buddy of the brand-new Diocese of San Diego and was used as a chapel by the Columbian fathers from 1938 to 1970, when the San Diego County Historical Days Association took over custodianship.

The humble place of prayer, with its thick walls and eight small pews, seems a church in miniature compared to Immaculate Conception. It's a fitting place for the couple who inspired Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona to marry.

Speaking of which: Who married the real-life “half-breed” Ramona and her Luiseño Indian husband, Alessandro? Father Ubach, of course—it was he who provided the inspiration for Jackson's fictional Father Gaspara.

Something tells me, as I pray among the visitors here, that the real Father Ubach is, even now, praying for all those who come to this place seeking God.

Elisabeth Deffner writes from

Orange, California.