Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

We send our greetings from Nazareth tonight, Tuesday the 16th.  There are 44 of us from Saint Bernadette and Saint Mary on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land which started last Sunday evening, and we will return on the evening of Sunday the 28th.

Today was our first full day of visiting holy places.  We landed early Monday morning in Vienna and, after a layover there, flew into Tel Aviv.  By the time we cleared customs and rode the coach to Nazareth it was well past dark and dinnertime.

Nazareth remains one of the stronger Christian communities in Israel/Palestine, at about 30% of the population.  It has seen a great boom in building and development in recent years, you might not recognize the place if you haven’t been here in a while.  It is, of course, the town where Mary lived with her family.  The Basilica of the Annunciation is built directly over the grotto, or cave, where Mary lived.  Nazareth was considered a backwater town, was largely poor, and people lived in natural caves which line the surrounding hills.  The people of Nazareth tended to be “parochial,” not too open to new ideas, and this is why they ultimately rejected Jesus and he relocated to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee (Sea of Tiberias), a much more cosmopolitan center of wealth, production and trade.  The area under and around the basilica in Nazareth is actually a neighborhood of caves, and the nearby church of Saint Joseph is actually built over the cave where Saint Joseph lived.  They were neighbors.  Another similar city where the largely-poor population utilized a large formation of multiple caves as dwellings is Bethlehem.

This morning we started with Mass at the lower chapel in the Basilica of the Annunciation.  I’ve been hoping for Mass here for 15 years!  It is on the lowest level of the building, the floor level of Mary’s grotto home.  The chapel altar is next to the room where the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and she conceived by the Holy Spirit.  The Son of God became Man.  From there you can see the 4th century construction of the Byzantine church (by Saint Helen, mother of Constantine), as well as the later crusader construction (12th century).  After Mass we toured the basilica, visited the church and grotto of Saint Joseph, then visited the synagogue where Jesus was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and proclaimed that the call to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and a year of favor from the Lord, freedom and peace was fulfilled in himself as all listened. 

Next we visited a suburb of Nazareth, a town called Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle.  One of the things I love best about Cana is this undeniable stone jar that was found while they were excavating beneath the current 19th century church building.  Beneath this church is found a crusader church in the basilican style, beneath that is found a synagogue that dates to Jesus’ time.  And in the middle of that dig is this stone jar.  It is about five feet tall, with thick stone sides that would hold about 30 gallons.  In Cana, all our married couples renewed their marriage vows.

Next, we went to the Sea of Galilee.  We visited three sites, all on the northeastern shore of the lake, where Jesus regularly visited.  One shrine, called Tabgha, is another discovery of the early Byzantine/Crusader/19th century structures built over the stone where Jesus stood to multiply the loaves and fish.  A little up the shore is another church, this one called Primacy of Peter, where Jesus appeared for the third time after his resurrection at the edge of the lake and cooked his disciples breakfast, then asked Peter three times “Do you love me?”, then giving the command, “Feed my sheep.”  The third location a bit farther along is the city of Capernaum, the city of traders where Peter’s own house was.  Jesus used Capernaum as one of his centers of activity in his work in Galilee, performing healings and miracles, preaching in their famous synagogue, and forming his disciples.

After lunch we got in a boat, probably a lot larger than the actual boats operated by Jesus’ disciples, and reflected on the many Gospel accounts of Jesus on the lake.  Then we toured a museum where is displayed an actual 2,000 year-old wooden boat which was discovered in a drought 30 years ago and carefully preserved in the mud.  Its carbon 14 dating confirms that it might be one of the boats on the lake even at the time of Jesus’ visitation.

This is just the first day!  I will keep up with updates, and hopefully will prepare a travelogue in the near future for anyone interested at the parish.  Please pray for us, we pray for you everywhere we go.  Follow us @frdonrooney.

God bless you.