Dear Friends in Christ,

When I first came to Tucson, visiting Emma’s family on a Christmas holiday some years back, we took a little excursion south of the city, and first stopped at San Xavier del Bac. I’d grown up visiting the Spanish missions in central Texas, but none of those could have prepared me for the extraordinary, Baroque brilliance of San Xavier—its paintings an explosion of color, its plasterwork a bewildering array of textures and forms. And then there is that massive, tiered reredos, with all its saints and cherubim and seraphim.

What a study in contrasts. The exterior of San Xavier is austere, whitewashed plaster. It punctuates the landscape like some kind of Greek monastery. But the interior is a riot of visual interest.

A little further down the road, past Tubac, is a church of a very different order. This is the Mission San José de Tumacácori, built between 1753 and 1757, abandoned by the Franciscan Friars by 1843, and by the O’odham residents in 1848. By the time the Department of the Interior took possession of it in 1908, it was little more than a ruin. The dome, the curtain walls, and most of the façade had survived, but there was no roof, no tower, just grass growing in the midst.

The history of the missions is a conflicted one, and Tumacácori fared worse than many. It was a site of much violence and repression, a rebellion in 1751, and an Apache attack a century later. The Church has much to atone for in this place, and in dozens like it.

But it is also holy ground. Land on which God’s faithful people worked and prayed. Land into which God’s people were buried.

In two weeks’ time, on Saturday, November 14, 2026, we will take a parish retreat down to the Tumacácori National Historic Park, and spend some time in this mission church, and in the glory of God’s creation. It will be an opportunity for us to slow down, to reflect, and—in our prayers—to be in the company of the saints in light. The Church’s mission is always “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (Book of Common Prayer, 855). This must be our prayer also, especially on that sacred ground.

Repentance. Reconciliation. Communion. This is not just the arc which we experience in our own lives individually, it is also the work of the Church. It is the arc of the Holy Eucharist itself.

At the end of our day together, I pray we will feel this reality acutely, as we meet in this unlit mission church of Saint Joseph, and celebrate the Holy Mysteries on the slab of an altar that has been gone for 175 years.

Yours, faithfully,

—Fr Matthew

For more information about the All Parish Retreat to Tumacácori and to register, please click here. Registration is capped at 50 attendees (the maximum capacity of the church).