Live music, community presentations, Mission Parish School performances, ringing of the historic bells, official press conference, exclusive performance by Renée Bondi singing Leon René’s classic song, “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano”, a reading from the newly published book, “The Year the Swallows Came Early”, as presented by its author Kathryn Fitzmaurice, guided tours, Mission trivia, Living History demonstrations and more!

Below are photos of previous years’ St. Joseph’s Day events, or for a sneak peek at the Mission and the Swallows Legend which will be presented by our guest author, please click here to view the video: (http://www.kathrynfitzmaurice.com/books.html). To learn more about the history of this legendary event, please read below

What better way to welcome back the swallows than with everything Italian! In honor of our Sister City: Capestrano, Italy, and our shared patron – St. John of Capistrano, the Mission will play host to 40 vendors, many of them direct from Italy and others from the Little Italy’s of Los Angeles, San Diego, and those which reside in the hearts of all of us when we enjoy good food, good music and great company.

Stroll through the historic Mission grounds and savor the sights and sounds of Italian art, food & music brought here directly from Italy. Buy a custom painted Italian bowl, eat a freshly grilled Italian sausage or sit by the koi pond and listen to lively Italian music….you’ll be as close to Italy as you can get without buying a plane ticket. To learn more about this wonderful new event and Saint John of Capistrano himself, please click here to read the history.

As this Mission and our fair town are named for Saint John, we choose to celebrate him with a welcome and a fairwell to the swallows – those birds we have come to know so well. Our welcome will invite the people of Capestrano, Italy to San Juan Capistrano in March 2009 for festivities on the grounds of the historic Mission that was his namesake. Please join us in our tribute to Italian culture in this Spanish mission. May we all hope to be just a little bit more Italiano March 21-22, 2009.

The Mission recognizes our 2009 Event Sponsors:

Official Transportation Sponsor: PPS Parking Inc.
Italian Vendor Sponsor: Vicky Colarossa Carabini, Ambassador to Capestrano, Italy		Supporting Sponsor: Bank of America

On March 21st and 22nd the Mission is pleased to announce a full line up of wonderful Italian entertainment.
Please click here for our schedule of exciting performers.

Performers and special guests include:

Miss Italia of California 2009	Roman Holiday Band
Vocalist Christina Carabini
Pat Longo’s Hollywood Big Band who will perform the hits of Frank Sinatra and other classics.

Exhibitors and vendors scheduled to be at this year’s Italian Celebration include:
Antonello’s Restaurants, Frankie’s Old World Biscotti, Gelato Paradiso, Mi Tesoro, Mr. D’s Pizza, Mustache Mike’s Italian Ice, Oliver’s Olive Oil, Angelo & Franco The Mozzarella Guys, Tutto Amore, Fiore Jewelry and The Pottery Shack

Click here for an Italian Celebration Exhibitor Application

Mission to Celebrate St. Joseph’s Day and Legend of the Swallows
A Legend Which Dates Back Centuries

Mission San Juan Capistrano will present its annual St. Joseph's Day Festivities and the Return of the Swallows on St. Joseph's Day: March 19, and on the following Saturday immediately after the Swallows Parade in town. Both events mark the return of those famous birds to Capistrano and the coming of spring - a time of renewal and rebirth.

The swallows are said to migrate annually to Goya, Argentina in October, and return to their spring and summer home in San Juan Capistrano each March. The Swallows celebration began centuries ago when Mission padres observed that the birds return roughly coincided with St. Joseph's Day on the church calendar, March 19. The celebration has achieved international prominence since then.

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In his book, Capistrano Nights, Father St. John O'Sullivan, Pastor of Mission San Juan Capistrano 1910-33, relates how the swallows first came to call the Mission home. One day, while walking through town, Fr. O'Sullivan saw a shopkeeper, broomstick in hand, knocking down the conically shaped mud swallow nests that were under the eaves of his shop. The birds were darting back and forth through the air squealing over the destruction of their homes.

"What in the world are you doing?" Fr. O'Sullivan asked.

"Why, these dirty birds are a nuisance and I am getting rid of them!" the shopkeeper responded.

"But where can they go?"

"I don't know and I don't care," he replied, slashing away with his pole.  "But they've no business here, destroying my property"

Fr. O'Sullivan then said, "Come on swallows, I'll give you shelter.  Come to the Mission.  There's room enough there for all."

The very next morning, the padre discovered the swallows busy building their nests outside the newly restored sacristy of Father Serra's Church.  Another favorite spot was the ruins of the Great Stone Church, which was once lined with hundreds of swallows' nests.

Fr. O'Sullivan noticed that the small birds migrated south in the autumn and returned to the Mission in spring on St. Joseph's Day, March 19th.  Upon their arrival, the swallows immediately went to work patching up their old nests, building new ones, and disputing possession of others with 'vagrant sparrow families' as they may have taken up illegal quarter there during the swallows' absence.

With a great flutter of wings, the swallows would peck at the soil, fly with a bit of it from the old Mission lagoon to the northeast of the buildings.  Using the water they made a paste of the earth in their beaks, amid more fluttering of wings at the pond's edge.  They then flew to the eaves of the Mission to deliver their loads of mud plaster for the walls of their inverted houses, and, as O'Sullivan observed, "receive the noisy congratulations of their mates".

One  of  Fr. O' Sullivan's companions at the Mission, José de Gracia Cruz, known as Acú, told Fr. O'Sullivan many stories and legends of the Mission. Acú, a descendent of the Juaneño Indians, was the Mission's bell ringer until his death in 1924, and spent long hours under the Mission's famed pepper tree making various items from leather

One of Acú's most colorful tales was that of the swallows (or las golondrinas as he called them).  Acú believed that the swallows flew over the Atlantic Ocean to Jerusalem each winter.  In their beaks they carried little twigs, on which they could rest on water when tired.

Saint John of Capistrano, Mission San Juan Capistrano and Capestrano, Italy

How are the three connected?

Saint Giovanni da Capestrano, known as John of Capistrano in English (born June 24, 1386, died October 23, 1456), was an Italian friar, preacher, theologian, inquisitor and crusader. John was born in 1385 in the village of Capestrano, Italy in the diocese of Sulmona in the Abruzzi region near Naples. Capestrano is located about 70 miles from Rome, and is a small medieval town in the province of L’Aquila in the foothills of the Gran Sasso National Park. John’s father had come to Italy with the Angevin court of Louis I of Anjou, King of Naples.

After beginning a secular study of the law, John was called to enter the religious order on October 4, 1416. Upon learning theology from St. Bernardine of Sienna, John accompanied St. Bernardine on his preaching tours in order to study his methods. In 1420, whilst still in deacon's orders, John was himself permitted to preach. But his apostolic life began in 1425, after he had received the priesthood.

He traversed the whole of Italy; and so great were the crowds who came to listen to him that he often had to preach in the public squares. At the time of his preaching all business stopped. At Brescia he preached to a crowd of 126,000 people, who had come from all the neighboring provinces. On another occasion during a mission, over 2,000 ill people were brought to him to be blessed, so great was his fame as a healer of the sick. He was beatified in 1694, and canonized in 1724.

St. John of Capistrano is patron saint of the Spanish mission outposts in California and Texas. He won lasting tribute in popular culture in Leon Rene’s famous song, "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano," which romanticizes the return of the little birds to the old Spanish mission of San Juan Capistrano.