I have a confession to make.

I have been dreading this post because I don’t know what to say about the Mission San Rafael.

This mission (the interior shown above) serves as a chapel to the parish church of Saint Raphael in San Raphael, California. It is the most unauthentic of the missions I have visited so far. I don’t really like saying this, but it was truly uninteresting as well.

Even the outside (shown here on the right) is unremarkable and not very authentic. It was founded in 1817, torn down in the 1860’s and a new chapel built in 1949.

The parish church  (shown on the left) is beautiful, I know this because we happened to attend mass there last summer. Unfortunately, during the week the church is closed and it isn’t the mission anyway, and this post is about the missions.

The mission is located on a busy city street in downtown. A woman side swiped me while I was parallel parking in front of the mission leaving her side mirror dangling from her car. My 2002 Chevy truck came out unscathed.

So that is my confession, truly uninteresting and unremarkable. But by all means if there is one thing I strive to be it is authentic.

By the way, your confession is also truly uninteresting and unremarkable – the priest has heard it all before. So this lent be authentic and just go. You’ll come out unscathed too, I promise.