Galilean Topography

[written 2/10/20]

view from the Church of the Beatitudes in Galilee

We read in the gospel for today’s Mass about how the Lord Jesus disembarked at Gennesaret, on the Sea of Galilee. Healing power flowed from Him. They came to Him from all around.

Have you have been there, dear reader? Gennesaret. It’s now an archaeological dig, right by the little town of Tagbha. It’s near Capernaum and Magdala. Home of…

The Korazim plateau rises up from the Galilean seashore there. The hillside forms a natural amphitheater. The land is scalloped in such a way that a voice carries up the hill. Plus it’s a breathtakingly beautiful, peaceful spot to sit and listen to someone. You look out over the Sea of Galilee.

Seems likely that the Lord Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount in this place.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, who will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice and truth. Blessed are the clean of heart, who will see God.

May the good Lord give us the grace for that to be us.

Prince and Other Particularities

“But we know where he is from.” (John 7:27)

Got me thinking about: Where am I from?

Upper-northwest Washington, D.C. I’m from Redskins fans. And from white people– the most well-meaning and well-mannered white people you’ll ever find. With every passing year, I admire my mother and father more, and I thank God more heartily that He brought me into this world from Kirk and Ann White.

I’m from Chevy Chase Playground, at Connecticut Avenue and McKinley Street, where I spent most of the 1970’s trying to learn how to play basketball. Speaking of the 1970’s: I’m from a time when people trusted each other more, and got along better, I think, than we do now.

I’m from the complicated East Coast. I’m from the United States. I’m from the English-speaking peoples, from the race of William Shakespeare. Praise God!

All of us have our own particular origins. None of us can altogether escape them.

In my limited experience I have learned that the greatest delusion a man can fall into is: thinking that there is some life for him to live other than being his father’s son. And the greatest delusion a woman can fall into is thinking she can live as someone other than her mother’s daughter. The Lord gives us each total uniqueness and sovereign free will, to be sure. But He also gives us particular origins, and to despise our origins is to despise ourselves.

…They thought that the Christ must be a man of incomprehensibly mysterious origin. How wrong they were! They had it altogether backwards.

The Nazarene, Who was raised by a carpenter and his wife, Who learned from them how to speak and walk and make pilgrimages down the Jordan to Jerusalem, Who frequented the same synagogue for years, where everyone could remember when He first started showing signs of a beard—the dusty-footed Galilean has revealed the truth:

We all have one origin: We come from God. And God brings each of us into the world in such a marvelously particular way that only He could come up with it all.

God gave me a teenage experience in which I listened to the greatest musician any of us will ever hear of, and I lived the years of high-school during his prime. God gave me Prince and the Revolution to grow up with, in their prime, when Prince wrote music and put on a show like no one since.

Only God could do something like that, give me something like that. Praise Him!

Sinners and Fruits

Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.

He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?

“By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!

“Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?

“By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” (Luke 13:1-5)

We all have some idea of how much the people of Haiti have gone through since the terrible earthquake on January 12th.

Do we think, because the Haitians have suffered, that they are greater sinners than all the other people in the northern hemisphere?

By no means!

The Sea Christ Sailed (and Walked on)

Today we visited the sites of Upper Galilee.

There is a church built over the stone where the Lord set five loaves and two fish–before He multiplied them and fed 5,000 men and their families. The place is known as Tagbha, and the German Benedictine fathers have built an absolutely beautiful church, where we prayed.

On the Mount of the Sermon

We ascended the Mount of “Sermon on the Mount.”

At the top is a Barluzzi church dedicated to the Beatitudes. We celebrated Holy Mass in the crypt and then strolled through the beautiful gardens.

A short distance away, we visited the Church of the Primacy of Peter. This church encloses the Mensa Christi, Christ’s Table, where the Lord cooked fish for some of the Apostles after He rose from the dead.

We were at the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Some of the pilgrims waded in and collected water, stones, and shells to bring to back home.

Then we went to eat some fish caught in the Sea of Galilee. The fish were served with their heads. We played with the heads, using them as ventriloquist dummies.

After lunch, we took a breezy boatride, looking at the the entire Sea of Galilee—the scene our Lord Himself gazed upon two millennia ago.

Synagogue in Capernaum

After the boatride, we visited the excavated town of Capernaum. We saw the ruins of the house of St. Peter, where the Lord Jesus lived for long periods of time and worked miracles.

We sat and meditated in the reconstructed ancient synagogue, built on the foundations of the synagogue where the Lord Jesus taught.

Pictures Worth…

When traveling in the Holy Land, you need a knowledgeable guide.

Raouf Karborani

We had a perfectly delightful trip on the bus…

We visited the ruins of Herod’s Ceasarea on the sea.

While we were there, we meditated on St. Paul’s explanation of his teaching, which the Apostle gave when he was being tried at Caesarea.

We headed north to Haifa, where we prayed at the cave of Elijah. Then we visited the beautiful Bahá’í Gardens.

From there, we went to Cana to visit the church of the Lord’s first miracle. He changed water into wine at a wedding.

All the married couples renewed their wedding vows.

Then we came to Nazareth to settle in for the evening. Tomorrow we will visit the place where the Lord became man, and where He grew up. We will also climb Mt. Tabor to visit the site of the Transfiguration.

…Without Father Golas and the photographer, today would hardly have been as memorable.

More to come…

By the way, I KNOW that I will miss the first two Hoyas’ games of the season. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land come first.