Going up to Jerusalem

A wonderful full day today. We visited Capernaum where Jesus lived, probably in Simon Peter’s home. Both Peter’s home and the synagogue where Jesus taught have been excavated. We celebrated Mass at the church built over the site of Peter’s home. (We are confident that it is Peter’s home because there are remains of churches built over it from earliest times. 

St. John records that this is where Jesus taught about the need to “eat his flesh and drink his blood” in order to have eternal life. It was hard teaching for many who first heard it and for many who have heard it since. We are blessed to know the life giving reality of receiving him in Holy Communion week by week and day by day. For more about Capernaum visit here.

The most beautiful place we have visited so far is Ein Karem where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived. (Zechariah would go into Jerusalem when he was on duty as a priest.) Here Mary came within the first two weeks of her pregnancy. John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb, recognizing his newly conceived cousin as the Messiah. Elizabeth recognized “the mother of my Lord”, saying “blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb” which we repeat whenever we say the Angelus or the Rosary. The Church of the Visitation is a beautiful sanctuary with wonderful paintings about Mary – in scripture and in the life of the church. 

We are settled now in the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, a Pontifical Institute just outside the New Gate of the Old City. For Steve’s video of yesterday go here. I will link today’s video when he posts it. 

 Tomorrow we visit Bethlehem and will pray for St. Mary’s and all our members and friends at the very place Jesus was born. 

God bless you.