The Galilee and the Conclusion of the Djinn's Holy Land Tour

It's Good Friday, as I write. I suppose that this is a perfect day on which to end my memories about and photos of the Holy Land, on the Galilee around which Jesus spent His days before the Crucifixion and some, after it, after the Divine Feat of Resurrection.

There were still a few other places our group visited, but I will leave these blog reveries with a final four, Capernaum, the Home Town of Jesus, The Mount of the Beatitudes, the Church of Peter's Primacy, and Magdala, the home town of Mary the Magdalene, which has only relatively recently (20 years) been unearthed.  They are the places of the miracles of Christ's ministry, before the people abandoned Him and then mocked and killed  Him.

Capernaum was a fishing village, the home of St. Peter, the remains of which still stands, where Jesus healed Peter's mother in law. There is a Synagogue not far from the home, and it is surely a place where Jesus taught. It is thought, also, that this is where the man on a palette was lowered down into Peter's home, the only way of entry as the place was packed inside and out to see the Lord, and the people wanted the man's healing. It might also be the town in which the daughter of Jairus was raised. "Little Girl, get up."

This day had begun with a bit of rain, but by the time we had crossed the water, and begun visiting the surrounding area of the Galilee, it had become mild and sunny and effused life.

St. Peter standing watch over the Sea of Galilee he once fished and from which he was called to ba an Apostle.

A column at the Synagogue.

Peter's

House under the Church

The site of the Lord's utterance of the Beatitudes was full of peace, and well manicured plants and flowers.

It was not hard to imagine this place on that day on which the multitude listened to His words, as they reclined on the soft ground.

I realize that I say to myself, "Oh, this was a favorite place!"  Is it possible for there to be degrees of favorites? Well, then I guess this next place was another "favorite". It is called the Church of Peter's Primacy. It is smack on the shore of the Galilee, which I particularly liked. 

In the story, Jesus has been resurrected. Some of the apostles are fishing, when they see a man, offshore. They do not at first recognize Him, but seeing they are not catching anything, He tells them where to cast their nets. They do and make a whopping catch. Peter recognizes it is Jesus and is overjoyed in coming to him from the shallows to the shore. Jesus is cooking for them. It is there that Jesus assures that Peter is the leader of this rag tag group, these fallible men, who each in their way (except John, the one He loved) betrayed Him as He went to His death on Calvary. Three times Peter,  watching Jesus be taken away, at a safe distance, had denied Him before the cock crowed three times. But he had repented and now Jesus asked Him three times, "Do you love Me?" Perhaps Peter did not realize that this episode was a kind of counteraction. But with his typical near impatience Peter says, "Lord, You know I love You."

Yes, this was a favorite place for me.

And then, finally, there is Magdala. I loved seeing that there were obvious archaelogical digs as we walked around, little blue tarps above a section that was, on work days (the day I visited was not, it was, I think Sunday) a current site of discovery. Not only was there this amazing first century synagogue, but also a Church, that seems to go by the name Duc in Altum, meaning "launch out into the deep", which Jesus did in calling to the apostles to be fishers of men, in calling even us skeptical moderns.

I don't generally like modern churches, but this one wowed me, with incredible mosaics representing the preaching life of Jesus, and an altar in the shape of a first century fishing boat.  In fact, the first century boat that was discovered in about 1986, or actually a part thereof, was found near Magdala. That was something I didn't get to see this trip.

There was also an amazing piece of art in one of the main chapels. It referenced the woman who had suffered from hemorrhaghes for years. Christ was walking in a large crowd, and she knew that if she was able to touch the hem of His tunic, she would be healed. All you see in this piece are the legs and feet of Jesus and the crowd and this woman's hand reaching for His hem.  It is powerful beyond words. Magdala is relatively new in the world of pilgrimage because though the mountain near it was known, the town's discovery is relatively new. It's worth the visit. But then, everything in the Holy Land is worth the visit!

And what would a trip to the Galilee be without a fish to eat! They don't fish in the Galilee, as I may have noted, because they are trying to build it up, but I figured, it was close enough.

A full fish would not ordinarily be my choice, and frankly, not knowing how to filet, I probably gave this creature a second death, but boy, was it tasty! Surely something to bring a smile, as was everything that I saw and did during this trip.

Today, as I was sitting in a front pew participating with many others in the Good Friday service at St. Victor in West Hollywood, I had along with me my little journal, in which I was recording the short homilies by Fr. Brennan on the last seven words of Christ. I remembered that this was the journal I had begun when I was in Israel, and went back to my quick notes (I never had time for more) of the various sites. Just a word sparked a memory, and I found myself near tears that I had been in many of the places where the history of salvation unfolded, only a few months ago. If I close my eyes, now, I am on that shore by the Church of Peter's Primacy. I hear the bells. I can almost see Jesus on the shore waving at His friends, waving a me, one of the many He has saved if only I say "Yes, Lord, I come to do Your Will."

Fr. Brennan said something along these lines, if I wrote it down right, "We are subjects (of God), endowed with the Gift of Freedom, asked to share His Life."  We choose whether we want the immortality He offers. And we need constant Grace to make the choice for immortality He has restored to us.

I hope, I pray, I obtained an abundance of Grace on my trip to the Holy Land. I don't know yet if it has changed me. But I feel a little something percolating within my soul.

At Home on the Galilee

It was nearly dinner time when we arrived at Maa'gan Holiday Village on the South Shore of  Lake Gennesaret, known to some of us better as the Sea of Galilee.

 I was eager to drop my stuff in my room and take in the scene and to try to connect my presence in 2018 to two thousand years before me. This was to be a different experience from the ordinary hotel. It was more like, well, a high end camp. Ma'agen was, or is, a kibbutz but it also is a place for vacationers. It also reminded me of a retreat house, where you have everything you need, a little living room, a little kitchenette, a bedroom and a bathroom,. And outside my bedroom window, the shoreline of the place where Jesus called Peter the fisherman.

Probably the shoreline has receded some since those days, and the Israeli government is restricting fishing on the Lake so as to restore the population to be fished. But this water was the center of much of the ministry of Jesus Christ. We would spend two nights here and during the days would travel through and around the perimeter where miracles happened and a particular too short earthly life was led to unveil Life Eternal. I know. I sound all "holy roller" here, but you know what, if it is true, as I believe, it is pretty awesome stuff not in the LA valley girl sense, but in the sense of breathtaking, astounding, stupendous, daunting, fearsome to use some of the dictionary terms. If this is true, all of this story that has become the source of amusement to far too many, then there are no earthly words to describe it. But I digress. . . .

After dinner, another cornucopia of Mediterranean delights, I wanted to get back to my cottage so I could go sit outside. A few of us, not having any idea where the path to the shore was, decided to go through a rather circuitous route of mud and reeds to get to the shore. We could see very little; some lights in the distance, and a bit of the lapping water, but it was enough. We were here. We were in another marvelous place where spiritual history unfolded. I liked this place because here and around it was where His life had been, before the events of Calvary. He was a Young Man with an Extraordinary mission among ordinary people and now I was connected to it, not from the distance of 7000 miles, but on the spot, or close enough thereto!

After our little group of women separated I decided to sit outside my room on the white wooden chairs. It was still warm enough with a light jacket, and I prayed the rosary. It's funny. Here I was raised a Catholic but growing up, the rosary was little a part of my prayer life. In fact, save for what we did in school, Mass every First Friday, the Baltimore Catechism before it was replaced by Jesus Christ Superstar, I did not do much praying. It wasn't part of our family life, though I am ever grateful my parents put me on the theological road formally. Only in the last few years have I recited the decades. And even then, I do so always antsy, with difficulty. But that night I stayed and looked around in disbelief that a girl from the Bronx was sitting in front of the body of water upon which Jesus walked, upon which He calmed the storm and the Apostles' fear, and I prayed five decades in gratitude.

I have sleep issues usually, but that night and most every night of my trip, except the first, I slept easily and peacefully, and woke up at 6 a.m. to find the easy path (now in daylight) to the shore. There were very few people there. I was grateful again. Someone had carved this into the sand.

The nature of the day's weather was ambiguous at sunrise. There was the sun but there were also some clouds. Some rain had been predicted.  It didn't matter. We were going to be taking a boat ride to another shore, and I hoped for it to be clement enough, although I thought about the fact that this "Sea" could turn quite nasty in a storm. Somehow I wasn't particularly worried, a enjoyable rarity. I would wait, and see, and it would be sufficient.

Morning sun over the hills at Ma'agan Village on the Galilee

The shore teaming with shells.

I took my little pink book of meditations and prayers, homemade in that I have for several years pasted into its blank pages sayings and parts of books that have moved me to thinking of things "above", or have consoled me in difficult times and walked for about a half hour, or more, before breakfast. Then after breakfast we went to the landing where there were boats for our trip to the area of the Church of the Beatitudes and the Church of Peter's Primacy. 

There weren't a lot of tourist boats out yet, or maybe it was that we were getting to a quieter end of season. Either way, even with some of the tourist trappings (T-Shirts and tchotkes being sold, and some canned religious music) it was about a close a connection to Christ in Life as I would feel during the trip. One of the images I have found helpful to me in darker times is the one where Christ is asleep in one of the ancient boats (ours was mostly wood, but clearly not ancient, and yet it felt right) when a storm on the Lake is roaring. He is not disturbed but His disciples are in a tizzy (as I can surely say I would have been). When He is awakened He says to them, "O Yea of Little Faith. Why are you so afraid?"  From my perspective today, in the here and now, I have pretended that I wasn't afraid because He was there. And on that modern wooden-ish boat, I thought strongly of that moment. For some 45 minutes we crossed the water where Jesus sailed (we were of course motor assisted). It was joyful. 

There was a little rain and that felt like a kind of a punctuation to the occasion, a spiritual blessing, if you will.

By the time that we would arrive at the other side, the weather began to improve.

Or that's how I remember it.

At the Church of the Beatitudes:

The sun did indeed come out..

one can imagine this is where the Beatitudes were preached

Onto the Church of Peter's Primacy:

Another image I like to conjure, when I am kind of doing a personal decade of the Rosary with Mysteries not official. It is after the Resurrection. The Apostles are fishing and again on the Sea of Galilee and again having trouble. They see a man on the shore and he tells them to throw their nets on another side. They do and while The Man waits for them on the shore, He cooks for them.

Peter realizes, "It is the Lord!" He jumps right in the water as the rest of the men bring the ship to shore. Here is established the Primacy of Peter, as Christ asks him three times, "Simon Peter, do you love me?" Peter seems to have failed the three questions to the denial over which he had bitterly cried and repented. 

"Lord, you know I love you!"

And from thence the quiet command of Jesus to Peter:  "Feed my sheep."

This was another spot that really drew me and brought to life this happy part of the founding of Christianity. 

The thing is, in every one of these places, it would have been possible to stay for days, to savor the sense of timelessness.  

I realize there are a couple place connected with the Galilee to note, Caparnaum among them. But the time has come to pause. More to come!

Near the Clouds on Mount Tabor

I think it was last week or so that one of the readings was about the Transfiguration, where Christ shown in both His natures before His Disciples, the Son of Man and the Son of God at once. And from Heaven came the Voice of Knowledge, of God the Father, about His Son, the Word of God, "This is My Beloved Son. Listen to Him."

The New Testament says only that it was a "high mountain", but Tradition identifies it as Mount Tabor. As everything else in Bible History, this is disputed.

All I can say to you, as one who was there, who rode in one of the little vans driven around the curves at high speed, round and round to the top, I was satisfied I was close enough to where the event happened.

Aerial View Courtesy of Exploring Mount Tabor: A Visitor's Guide

It seemed to me, throughout the trip, that beautiful, powerfully puffy clouds, dominated the various landscapes our group visited.  But here, especially, I could imagine hearing the Voice of God, possibly without surprise, for this is the Land in which He spoke most visibly and most poignantly.

Photo from outside terrace of the Church of the Transfiguration

This was one of the locations to which I had been longing to go. It is the site of another of the most affecting, for me, mysteries of the Rosary. It is a scene at which I would love to have been present. I am sure I would have had no more understanding than the Apostles, of what was before me, but still, I wish it. 

I had been asked to do the Epistle during the Mass which was scheduled for us. I am a regular lector at my own parish, and I did want to read, but I did not interpose myself. Selections had been made by others of those to read, and I had accepted that I might not get the chance at all. So, when I WAS asked, I was grateful, and that it would be in this holy place.

It almost didn't happen. There was some confusion over a prior group's earlier appointment for Mass. We were nearly asked to join that group obviating our private Mass with Fr. Francis. I prayed for a quick moment, hoping that the group would rather wait for our specific appointment to gather. And the group agreed. We would wait. I breathed a quiet sigh of joyful relief.

And took some more pictures and thought about how amazing that I was walking in this Land in this, my life.

At left, the ambo from which I had the opportunity to read during the Mass on November 30, 2018, the Feast of the Transfiguration

As I sat in one of the pews surrounding the altar, over the left shoulder of the celebrating priest, as you can see in an earlier shot was a mosaic of three angels praying over a Lamb, the Lamb of God, Christ. The thing I noticed about the Lamb in the Mosaic was that He was smiling. He was smiling at the consummation of His own sacrifice. I couldn't take my eyes from it. 

Now, when I say the Rosary, I image this place, the inside and the outside. It grounds me, particularly when my mind, as it does often, wanders. 

THIS IS MY BELOVED SON; LISTEN TO HIM!