We didn't know how far north of Santa Ysabel we'd have to go before finding California's Mission Santa Ysabel.

Thanks to our suburbanized sensibilities, we couldn't tell if we'd driven one mile or 10 through the stark landscape ringed by the Volcan Mountains.

But soon my friend and I, making our way back from Julian, a former mining town in San Diego County, had driven through the open gates of the historic and holy site (one that I, a native Californian, was ashamed to admit I'd never heard of).

Embarrassed as I was, I had to admit that there was good reason for my unfamiliarity with the place. Santa Ysabel hadn't been an official mission, but an asistencia — a sub-mission — connected to Mission San Diego de Alcala, which was set up to serve the Christianized native people who lived far from San Diego.

It is thought that the first Mass was offered here in 1818 by Franciscan Father Fernando Martin. Apparently his surroundings did not differ too much from today's; Santa Ysabel was nicknamed “the church of the desert.”

In later years, though, the mission included not only the chapel but also a granary, houses and a cemetery. The 450 Indian neophytes raised wheat, barley, corn and beans. Fertile orchards and vineyards were also attached to the mission.

Now the grounds have receded into the same state of natural abandonment that no doubt greeted Father Martin. A lone windmill — a still sentinel the day we visited — stands near a waterless well and an outdoor crucifix. Just a few steps away is an archeological discovery: a piece of the original mission floor.

Walking through a sparse planting of locust trees, I approached a low stone wall on which stands a niche holding a statue of the Blessed Mother. Behind it, framed by nearby oak trees, is the 78-year-old, Spanish-style St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Palpable Peace

Inside, a dozen creaking wooden pews sat before the altar on either side of a decorative tile floor. The stairs leading to the choir loft are high and narrow, as if intended for smaller feet. The décor is a mosaic of sorts: traditional, stained-glass windows of saints, contemporary plaster Stations of the Cross, a stylized window of the Blessed Mother in the choir loft, a Native American wall hanging — a cross within a circle, feathers dangling from each corner of a surrounding diamond — from the balcony. The altar bears a mosaic of the Last Supper, and murals line the walls around it.

A deep sense of peace and solitude permeates; in fact, it's there on the grounds as well as inside the church. Weekday visitors may feel as though they're exploring a little-known corner of California history, but this is an active parish and a perfectly sited one. Outside, majestic skies overhead, and an old, humble and silent cemetery underfoot. Inside, the physical presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. It would be a very distracted believer who could fail to recognize God's presence here.

From flourishing mission to 75-family parish, the road from there to here has been a long and winding one.

Originally the Franciscan padres had anticipated building a second chain of California missions, inland from the coastal chain that stretches from San Diego to Sonoma. Santa Ysabel would have been a link in this chain. But Mexico's victorious battle for independence from Spain and the subsequent secularization of the missions in the 1830s aborted this plan. After 1836, the padres stopped making regular visits to Santa Ysabel. Soon the buildings fell into ruins.

In 1844, the Santa Ysabel Rancho was granted to Jose Joaquin Ortega and Edward Stokes. Thirty-nine years later the natives were granted lands for the Mesa Grande Reservation, and 10 years after that the Santa Ysabel Indian Reservation was formed. Later still, three acres of this land were returned to the Catholic Church, Mass was once again held on the one-time mission site and a new church was established. St. John the Baptist also has a chapel 15 miles north: St. Francis Chapel, just off the highway and up a dirt road.

Humble and Holy

So, instead of heading back through small towns like San Pasqual and Ramona that had led us to Julian, we proceeded along two-lane Highway 79. The rock-speckled land stretching alongside the highway was like a moonscape.

Tiny, tile-roofed St. Francis Chapel is crowned with a rock bell-tower upon which stands the cross. The wooden door is swollen and difficult to open, but the thick-walled adobe structure is welcoming. Whitewashed beams, some of them as rough as though they were cut by hand, form an intricate design along the ceiling. Statues of the Blessed Mother and Our Lady of Guadalupe stand on the generous windowsills, arms outstretched beneath hanging plants and before the view of scrub-studded land and brown hills.

Built in 1898 by Mesa Grande Indians, the chapel is still an active church at which weekly Mass is celebrated. It marks the point where the trail of tears started for the native people who now live on the Pala Reservation that surrounds another San Diego County asistencia: Mission San Antonio de Pala.

The place they started made a fitting place for us to finish a memorable visit to a humble and holy mission.

Elisabeth Deffner writes from Orange, California.