Today did not start out well, as I lost the wifi connection in the middle of writing yesterday's entry. That created an error and I drained my battery trying to get back what I had drafted. In the end, I lost it and lost the ability to take all of the pictures that I wanted to take. Yesterday's entry was actually late and more complicated, since I had to complete it a whole day late, meaning I had two days already blurring together. I have the same today, so am trying to complete both days one after the other to avoid the same confusion tomorrow.
We started the day early, having to leave the hotel by 730 am. I ended up not sleeping much waking up at about 330-400, but had not negative effects during the day because of that. We headed down the Hasmodian road, which passes where the Maccabees lived. They were the ones who took back Jerusalem from the Greeks and started Chanukah, which commemorates the rededication of the temple. We also passed the Gaza Strip famous for the fanatical Muslims who live there (Hamas). Tony, our regular tour guide and professor of archaeology who is working on his second PhD, pointed out that physically they resemble the philistines and their fanatical actions as well.
We arrived in Caesarea, the city built by Herod the great in honor of Caesar Augustus. It was the capital of Israel for 600 years and had many extremes including the largest theater in the Middle East, a big hippodrome (which according to Tony is dwarfed by another larger one that is just being excavated), and the palatial grounds. Herod ended up dying from eternal bleeding ("punishment" for ordering the slaughter of the Holy Innocents?). His pool was lined with lead, so the theory is that ended up causing cancer.
There was one stone of particular interest to us, one that according to Tony was found by accident. One of the excavators was turning over some tiles at the bottom of the level of excavation, something that is never done. He came across one dedicating the palace to Herod and mentioning the name of one Pontius Pilate. That was the first non-biblical mention of that name. The name means spear thrower, so it is theorized the Pilate, whose given name is not known, was a proficient at tossing spears and was from Ireland.
Next, we headed to one of the highlights for Maria, Haifa, which is Mount Carmel and contains Stella Maris the mother house and original site of the Carmelites the oldest religious order. It is also the site of the tomb of St Elijah. Maria spent a lot of time touching things to the tomb for her Carmelite brothers and sisters. I spent a good amount of time in deep prayer there, and as an extra bonus had a nice shot of espresso!
After piling back in the bus, we headed down the highway that follows the original route to Nazareth, the Via Maris. We would continue down the same way later, but that is blurring the next day's write up, so I will try to hold off.
Nazareth, which means new branch, was our next stop. We were visiting the Church of the Annunciation, where Mary was told by an angel that she would conceive the son of God, but first we had mass. Masses was at the smaller chapel of St Joseph. Not only was the name of the chapel perfect for our group, but the God-instances continued. The first reading for the day just happened to be about Elijah and Mount Carmel. There was construction going on before mass bringing to mind the carpentry work of St Joseph in the very spot thought to be his workshop. There was a breeze blowing through the chapel brining to mind the Holy Spirit who had overshadowed Mary on that very same spot. The entire chapel was very franciscan reminding me of my devotion to him. Everything seemed to be coalescing to bring our minds to more important things than our earthly concerns.
The Church of the Annunciation is a modern church with mosaics dedicated to Mary from around the world. Most are quite beautiful, with the exception of the one from the US that looks like a metal monstrosity. Maria of course found the one depicting the apparition in Colombia. We also ended up running into a group of 30 Colombian pilgrims, who had to be the most photo happy people I have seen, working to capture a shot of everything at least once. I found a couple of quiet spots (one by the site of the annunciation and one back away from everything else) and prayed for all of my friends back in the US and for all of us on the pilgrimage.
The construction of the church was quite interesting: it was done in 1969 under the auspices of the Franciscan custodians, with Jewish architects and Muslim contractors. The idea was to show the eucumenity and positive links in spite of the conflicts going on around. The facade is in the shape of both an A and an M for Ave Maria. The top is an upside down chandelier through which the light of god passes in order to take human flesh in the Eucharist which is celebrated below.
Tony shared a sad story about a Muslim billboard just outside of the church on the street. It was highly anti-Christian but Tony stated that it was worse before. He took us to an adjacent park, which he shared used to be the parking lot for pilgrim buses. The Muslim attendant had supposedly located the remains of a "Muslim saint", and radical Muslims came from across the Middle East to push for the construction of a mosque right next to the church "as a way of prosthelytizing by broadcasting over the christian worship". He shared that he and many of his friends had stayed armed in neighboring Christian houses to keep the mosque from being built. The Israeli army intervened and ordered a park for the use of all to relax. Now the park lays empty and the buses have to park much further away. It wa yet another example of what Christians face here in the Holy Land that we never hear about.
We ended our day by driving to the city of Tiberius. It is a primarily Jewish city (which shuts down almost completely on Friday night as I was to find out the next day). It is supported by tourist with Jewish tourist flocking in the off season and Christians during the high because it is the largest of the cities on the Sea of Galilee. It was a beautiful view of the lake (no where near the size of Lake Tahoe), but we wouldn't see it up close until the next day. We are and then a small group of us went in search of a bar to watch the first World Cup match. It was not easy. The lady at the reception desk was no help ("people watch at their house if they watch"). She sent us to an Irish pub, but not even there. Luckily the man from the pub, who spoke only Arabic, was able to make us understand where the one bar was. It turned out that the bar had a large group of Latinos from Miami (mostly Colombians), so we watch the game with their cheers and those of the handful of Americans, a bunch of Jews, a few Arabs, and a group of about African pilgrims in addition to Father Mark, Maria, a Mexican couple and I. It was a lot of fun Seeing how football brings together such diverse people! Then we got to walk back to our hotels (the group from Miami was at the one across the street from us), so we had a chance to talk, joke and share experiences.
We started the day early, having to leave the hotel by 730 am. I ended up not sleeping much waking up at about 330-400, but had not negative effects during the day because of that. We headed down the Hasmodian road, which passes where the Maccabees lived. They were the ones who took back Jerusalem from the Greeks and started Chanukah, which commemorates the rededication of the temple. We also passed the Gaza Strip famous for the fanatical Muslims who live there (Hamas). Tony, our regular tour guide and professor of archaeology who is working on his second PhD, pointed out that physically they resemble the philistines and their fanatical actions as well.
We arrived in Caesarea, the city built by Herod the great in honor of Caesar Augustus. It was the capital of Israel for 600 years and had many extremes including the largest theater in the Middle East, a big hippodrome (which according to Tony is dwarfed by another larger one that is just being excavated), and the palatial grounds. Herod ended up dying from eternal bleeding ("punishment" for ordering the slaughter of the Holy Innocents?). His pool was lined with lead, so the theory is that ended up causing cancer.
There was one stone of particular interest to us, one that according to Tony was found by accident. One of the excavators was turning over some tiles at the bottom of the level of excavation, something that is never done. He came across one dedicating the palace to Herod and mentioning the name of one Pontius Pilate. That was the first non-biblical mention of that name. The name means spear thrower, so it is theorized the Pilate, whose given name is not known, was a proficient at tossing spears and was from Ireland.
Next, we headed to one of the highlights for Maria, Haifa, which is Mount Carmel and contains Stella Maris the mother house and original site of the Carmelites the oldest religious order. It is also the site of the tomb of St Elijah. Maria spent a lot of time touching things to the tomb for her Carmelite brothers and sisters. I spent a good amount of time in deep prayer there, and as an extra bonus had a nice shot of espresso!
After piling back in the bus, we headed down the highway that follows the original route to Nazareth, the Via Maris. We would continue down the same way later, but that is blurring the next day's write up, so I will try to hold off.
Nazareth, which means new branch, was our next stop. We were visiting the Church of the Annunciation, where Mary was told by an angel that she would conceive the son of God, but first we had mass. Masses was at the smaller chapel of St Joseph. Not only was the name of the chapel perfect for our group, but the God-instances continued. The first reading for the day just happened to be about Elijah and Mount Carmel. There was construction going on before mass bringing to mind the carpentry work of St Joseph in the very spot thought to be his workshop. There was a breeze blowing through the chapel brining to mind the Holy Spirit who had overshadowed Mary on that very same spot. The entire chapel was very franciscan reminding me of my devotion to him. Everything seemed to be coalescing to bring our minds to more important things than our earthly concerns.
The Church of the Annunciation is a modern church with mosaics dedicated to Mary from around the world. Most are quite beautiful, with the exception of the one from the US that looks like a metal monstrosity. Maria of course found the one depicting the apparition in Colombia. We also ended up running into a group of 30 Colombian pilgrims, who had to be the most photo happy people I have seen, working to capture a shot of everything at least once. I found a couple of quiet spots (one by the site of the annunciation and one back away from everything else) and prayed for all of my friends back in the US and for all of us on the pilgrimage.
The construction of the church was quite interesting: it was done in 1969 under the auspices of the Franciscan custodians, with Jewish architects and Muslim contractors. The idea was to show the eucumenity and positive links in spite of the conflicts going on around. The facade is in the shape of both an A and an M for Ave Maria. The top is an upside down chandelier through which the light of god passes in order to take human flesh in the Eucharist which is celebrated below.
Tony shared a sad story about a Muslim billboard just outside of the church on the street. It was highly anti-Christian but Tony stated that it was worse before. He took us to an adjacent park, which he shared used to be the parking lot for pilgrim buses. The Muslim attendant had supposedly located the remains of a "Muslim saint", and radical Muslims came from across the Middle East to push for the construction of a mosque right next to the church "as a way of prosthelytizing by broadcasting over the christian worship". He shared that he and many of his friends had stayed armed in neighboring Christian houses to keep the mosque from being built. The Israeli army intervened and ordered a park for the use of all to relax. Now the park lays empty and the buses have to park much further away. It wa yet another example of what Christians face here in the Holy Land that we never hear about.
We ended our day by driving to the city of Tiberius. It is a primarily Jewish city (which shuts down almost completely on Friday night as I was to find out the next day). It is supported by tourist with Jewish tourist flocking in the off season and Christians during the high because it is the largest of the cities on the Sea of Galilee. It was a beautiful view of the lake (no where near the size of Lake Tahoe), but we wouldn't see it up close until the next day. We are and then a small group of us went in search of a bar to watch the first World Cup match. It was not easy. The lady at the reception desk was no help ("people watch at their house if they watch"). She sent us to an Irish pub, but not even there. Luckily the man from the pub, who spoke only Arabic, was able to make us understand where the one bar was. It turned out that the bar had a large group of Latinos from Miami (mostly Colombians), so we watch the game with their cheers and those of the handful of Americans, a bunch of Jews, a few Arabs, and a group of about African pilgrims in addition to Father Mark, Maria, a Mexican couple and I. It was a lot of fun Seeing how football brings together such diverse people! Then we got to walk back to our hotels (the group from Miami was at the one across the street from us), so we had a chance to talk, joke and share experiences.