American History
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California’s San Juan Capistrano Mission - 1
How the Bells of Capistrano
Rang for Matilda
In his book Capistrano Nights, Charles Francis Saunders recorded the memories of Fr. John O’Sullivan, who came to San Juan Capistrano Missions in 1910. Charmed by the history of the Franciscans, the people and place, Fr. O'Sullivan determined to restore the old Mission that had fallen into ruin after the secularization of the Mission by the Mexican government in 1833.
These are tales he recorded from the people who had kept the living history of the old blessed Mission days, passed down from one generation to another. In this selection he tells the story of the Indian girl Matilda and how her good reputation was restored by Heaven.
These are tales he recorded from the people who had kept the living history of the old blessed Mission days, passed down from one generation to another. In this selection he tells the story of the Indian girl Matilda and how her good reputation was restored by Heaven.
Father asked me [Charles Saunders] into his rustic room to finish the evening with him, and he told me a curious story connected with the church in the old days. Starting a cheerful blaze in the little fireplace and pulling chairs up to it, he took a notebook from a drawer and opening it said:
The restored chair and fireplace in Mission San Juan Capistrano
An interruption by Crisanta
From my seat in the corridor I saw old Crisanta coming toward the Mission, eyeing as she came the newly erected monument to Father Serra, and pausing every few steps to view some part of the building.
“Let me interrupt the story here,” said the Father, “to say, apropos of this old Indian Crisanta, that she once told Don Juan Aguilar that when she was a very little child both her parents died, and she lived alone in the mountains near Pala with her sister. They were like wild creatures, only going to their hut to sleep and roaming about the mountains all day in search of roots for food. When anyone came near them they would run off and hide.
Blas Aguilar & his wife Maria Antonio
But Crisanta came up to us and after a few commonplace remarks, she gave us the present of a little sack of corn.
“Crisanta,” I asked, “do you remember about the Mission many years ago? ”
" Y como no – and why not? ” she answered, a little impatiently. “Did I not come here from Pala when I was 8-years old and live in the Mission?”
As we walked about … we passed around a heap of stones serving as a buttress to the east wall of the old church and arrived at two small windows. At the first window, the one nearest the altar, Crisanta looked around and said simply, “Just here, outside the window, they buried Matilda.”
The ruins as Fr. John O'Sullivan found them
“Matilda,” she replied, “ was a young girl, the aunt of Acu, and she lived just across the road at the corner, there where that high poplar tree is, on the other side of the cemetery. She used to help the Padre, doing the washing and ironing of the altar linens.
“One morning while he was saying Mass, he saw her peeping in at him through this little window, and he turned his head several times to look at her, and some of the women in front also saw her. So that day, when the Padre met her in the kitchen, he scolded her for looking in at the little window while he said Mass, but she said she had not looked in at all.
“In a few days the Padre and the women saw her again peeping in the window, and her brother-in-law saw her outside walking near the church.
“He said to himself, ‘I’ll scare her.’ So, when she came out toward the front where there were horses and wagons, he ran toward her to give her a good scare, but suddenly she disappeared. Then, he went straight over to her house to find out what was the matter. He found Matilda in the house, ironing, and she said she had not been out.
“Another time the same brother-in-law saw her coming away from the little window, and when he went toward her she disappeared again. It was her spirit, Padre, her sombra, which was walking about while she still lived, but it was a sign that she was going to die. And, in a few days die she did, and the bells of the mission rang of themselves.
The bells all rang at her death to declare her innocence
“Afterwards,” remarked the Father as he laid down the notebook, “I learned that the story of Matilda is well-known in San Juan, and is told with some details that Crisanta had not mentioned. One day the old Indian Acu spoke of her:
“It is true, Padre,” said he, “that Matilda was my aunt. She lived near the Mission in a house that stood over by that big tree at the comer of the lane. She was a very good girl, but some people had spoken ill things of her. They accused her of indiscreet action, and those accusations made her so sad that she became sad and sick even to death for, simple girl, she had no way to defend herself.
"You see it was this way: The day she died the bells were ringing. But that day the people were expecting the Bishop, and a Portuguese hombre who lived beyond the Trabuco (River) heard the bells and came down to find out if the Bishop had arrived.
“’But it was not the bells of the Mission at all that had sounded. It was the bells in Heaven ringing to welcome the girl. Truly, Padre, it was Heaven witnessing to the goodness of the girl and rebuking those who had slandered her.
“’After that nobody ever said a word against her name.’ ...
“And that,” remarked the Father, “is the story of Matilda of San Juan Capistrano.”
Fr. John O’Sullivan (1874-1933) made the dream
of restoring San Juan Capistrano Mission a reality
Posted March 7, 2026
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