We were told in the information about our trip that there would be no internet available here at the Mount of the Beatitudes. But here I am in the library with a hard wire connection. I'm happy to be blogging again tonight. I can't imagine this piling up for four or five days and having to catch up. Enjoy, folks!.
It has been two wonderful days in the Holy Land.
As we approached Israel, the flight attendant made the announcement that we had just entered Israeli airspace. No cameras or binoculars were to be used through the windows of the aircraft. It is against the law.
Welcome to Israel!
We arrived without any problems. Luggage camethrough fine, customs clearance went quickly. There were other people who had been standing at the same window while 15 - 20 people were being cleared through the one next to them.
We stayed at the Maccabiah Suites just outside of TelAviv. Next morning we were on our way early after a spectacular breakfast buffet. Eveything you could imagine, (except bacon and sausage). Our first stop was the church of St. Peter in Joppa. This church is built upon the site where St. Peter had his vision of the agnels lowering a sheet filled with foods, those permitted and thosse prohibited by Jewish law. See the Acts of the Apostles 10:9-23. This was the site of the first Gentile baptisms, thus opening up the church to non-jews.
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| Church of St. Peter in Joppa. |
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| The view from the park in front of St. Peter's Church. The Meditarean Sea and the new suburbs of Tel Aviv visible in the distance. |
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| The interior of St. Peter's Church |
Our next stop was Ceasarea Maritima. At the time of Jesus, Herod decided he needed to impress the Romans and provide a suitable seaport for them. He built a city with a man-made seaport with a deep harbor. The city included a beautiful palace for himself, a Roman style theater, a large hippo-drome or a circus. (A large eliptical track with stadium seating for about 40,000 people.), warehouses, and docks large enough to accomodate the large Roman vessels.
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| Testing the amazing acoustics in the Roman Theater. Standing in the right place, one's voice carries clearly right through to the last row of seats. |
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| The remains of the circus. Stadium seating on the left facing the sea. Chariot races, foot races would be held here. There were also gladiatorial contests and executions of Christians. |
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| The ruins of the sea-water pool at Herod's Palace. |
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| Floor mosaics in a well-to-do house. |
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| 12th Century fortifications built by the Crusaders in their attempt to take the Holy Land from Muslim control. |
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| Interior of the Crusaders' fortifications from the 12th Century. |
Leaving Ceasarea Maritimia, we went north towards Haifa and stopped at a beautiful beach. Extending along the entire beach is the ruin of the aquaduct built to supply water to Herod's new port city.
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| Herod's Aquaduct built to supply fresh water to his new port city. |
Leaving the beach (it was a beautiful day as you can see. It really was the kind of beach I could have spent the afternoon) we drove north to the Tel Meggiddo. A "tel" is a man-made hill created by the repeated destruction and construction of cities one on top of the other. Meggido was an extremely important strategic location in the center of Israel. It was the crossroads of merchant caravans from the north of modern day Turkey, south from Egypt, and East from Persia and Babylon. Control Meggido and you control the commerce of the whole middle-east. The tel rises up from the plain at the bottom of the wide flat valley. The mountains are quite a distance away. The hill exists because 26 cities have been built one on top of the other. When one city was destroyed, they simply flattened out the top of the rubble and built another city. When the walls of a building tumble down, they bury the bottom half of the stone walls. So the builders use those walls to build their new building or city. and the process continues. Archaelogists can study the ruins by carefully removing one layer of city after another.
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| Views west from the top of the Tel Megiddo. Look at the size of the cars on the road below to understand how high this man-made mountian really is. |
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| Ruins of KIng Solomon's stables, large enough to accomodate 450 horses. EAch vertical post is supports a wall separating the stalls. The horses fed from the stone troughs. |
The amazing structure is a tunnel dug underground some 500 feet through the bedrock to access a spring. When the city was under seige, the citizens could climb down some 180 steps to the tunnel and carry the water back up in jars.
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| The shaft (with modern stairs) that people descended to obtain the water. |
After the fascinating time at Meggiddo Tel, we traveled up to Haifa and the location of our second night's accomodation on Mount Carmel: the Carmelite Monastery and Basilica built over the Cave of Elijah. See. I Kgs 18:41. There is also a tradition that says the Holy Family stayed here in the grotto on their return to Galilee from Egypt.
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| View of the city and port of Haifa from the ridge of Mount Carmel |
The next morning, we were on the bus early to reach our destination of Cana before the crowds descended on the place. We celebrated Mass in the church and saw a group of other pilgrims renewing their wedding vows at the altar.
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| The Church at Cana. Couples on a pilgrimage renewing their marriage vows. |
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| This is one of the stone water jars used to hold the water for drinking and ceremonial washings in well-to-do Jewish households. Six of these jars in one location meant that the bride was marrying into a wealthy family. |
Leaving Cana, we traveled to Sepphoris, another strategic hill town which offered a birds-eye view of the of the valley leading out of Galilee. This city became very important after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 72AD. But this city was built up by Herod in the first decades of the 1st century AD. This fine stone work, mosaics, and most likely the fine furniture needed to furnish homes of this quality would have required many skilled craftsmen. This city is near the tiny town of Nazareth. It was being built up at just the time that Joseph, Mary and Jesus would have lived in Nazareth. Matthew's gospel refers to Jesus as "as the craftman's son". While it is often translated as "carpenter", the original Greek implies a more general meaning of someone technically trained. Herod's works here would have required many different kinds of craftsmen to complete his city.
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| Another Roman theater at the site of Sepphoris. Archaelogists can figure on the size of a city by the seating capacity of its theater. They were built with about a 1 - 10 ration. This theater accomodatated 2000 people therefore, scientists believe that Sepphoris would have had about 20,000 inhabitants. |
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| Mosaic sidewalks in Sepphoris. |
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| Floor mosaic in a house showing people gathered around a dining table. |
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| Intricate patterns of floor mosaics in a house. |
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| Classic style of paving streets in Roman cities. Most streets are paved with basalt, this city had streets paved with limestone, harder and more expensive. It is another indication that there was great wealth here. |
After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, Sepphoris became a great Jewish intellectual center. Written records speak of Rabbis compiling the word-of-mouth laws that circulated among the Jews. These were written down to produce the Mishnah, the precursor of the Talmud of the Jewish faith. The excavations at Sepphoris are now preserved in a national park. The site of the ancient synagogue has been uncovered and a modern glass pavilion built over the beautiful mosaic floor. This syngogue is used today and as we were leaving the building, a family was arriving to celebreate the bar mitzvah of their son.
Our next destination was Nazareth and the basilica of the Annunciation.
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| Facade of the Basilica of the Annuciation. This church was completed in 1969. It replaces at least three known churches that stood on this place. The first was a small octagonal Byzantine style church built over the grotto that tradition says was the home of Mary and where the angel approached her with God's message of the Incarnation. That Byszantine style church was destroyed by the Turks in the 6th century and another church was built again in the 12th century by the crusaders. Excavations in recent years have uncovered graffitti of the 2nd century saying that the devotion to this place as the home of Mary already existed by that time. |
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| The grotto of Mary |
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| The sanctuary of the Basilica of the Annunciation |
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| Many catholics from many nations around the world, contributed to the construction of the new basilica. Each nation who contributed was permitted to place a mural along the sides of the church. This is the mural from the USA. It is entitled "The Woman Clothed With the Sun". It is by an artist from Pennsylvania. |
Near the Basilica of the Annunciation is the church of St. Joseph. It is built above excavations of 1st Century grottos, caves, and storage cisterns on Nazareth. While there is no proof that the Holy Family lived in any particual one, we know that they lived in this community. People of the middle ages knew of these cave houses and built a church over one believed to be the home of St. Joseph. A church built in the late 19th century in a medeival style honors Joseph, the husband of Mary.
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| The Church of St. Joseph in Nazareth. |
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| Stained Glass window in the crypt of the Church of St. Joseph showing the death of Joseph with Mary and Jesus at his side. |
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| Stained glass window in the crypt of the Church of St. Joseph showing the marriage of Joseph and Mary. |
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| Stained glass window in the crypt of the Church of St. Joseph depicting Joseph's dream telling him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife. |
It was a long day. After leaving Nazareth we made our way to the east and sea of Galilee. We are staying three nights here at the hostel of the convent at the Mount of Beatitudes. Tomorrow we are beginning our day with Mass at Capernaum followed by a trip through the Golan Heights and the upper Galilee. We will visit another Tel site, then down the Jordan River to the Church of Peter's Primacy. This site belived to be the place where Jesus commissioned Peter with the Keys to kingdom and leader of he church.
