| Day 10 continued... |
| Nearby is the Church of Saint Joseph. The lower level is the remains of his home, now transformed into an altar with a Franciscan cross above it and a painting of the Holy Family behind. An orange cat sits on a wooden pew. In all of the churches, silent Franciscans roam, motioning for quiet, gently reminding men to remove their hats. Outside, they laugh among themselves and throw scraps of food to the cats. |
Given a choice between the gift shop and the restrooms, I chose the gift shop, then wandered outside, up steps and through archways. Outside the gates I pose, smoking, for a picture under a sign which forbids four things: bread, bathing suits, cigarettes and machine guns. There is just enough time to buy fresh squeezed orange juice from an Arab merchant before we are on our way again. |
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| We make a mad dash through the steep and winding streets of Nazareth, dodging racks of souvenirs, flower stands, tables with spices, merchants. At every turn, someone offers you candy, a postcard, falafel. We drive next to the Sea of Galilee, passing the town of Mash-Ned (possibly misspelled�I cannot decipher my writing from the bus ride); this is the Arabic word for �witness.� On July 4, 1187 Salahadin defeated the Crusaders; this town witnessed it. We pass Cana and Migdal (the Greek is Magdalla), which has stood here and born the same name for 2,000 years; it is the home of Mary Magdallen. On both sides of the road are mango and banana trees, the bananas covered in blue plastic to keep them from ripening prematurely. We see also the water plant which draws water form the Sea of Galilee; Israel gets half of its water supply here. We are now below sea level, and our view of the Sea of Galilee is the same as it would have been in Jesus� time; in the south, the landscape has changed greatly over the centuries, but in the north it has not. We drive up the Mount of the Beatitudes, which, like all roads to every church in Israel has been recently repaved in the hopes that Pope John Paul II will visit during the Jubilee Year 2000. At the Church of the Beatitudes, we read Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount.This is one of the few sites where we are sure we have the wrong place for the event commemorated; this is the right mountain, but the actual sermon took place lower down, closer to the shore, where a Byzantine church now stands. |
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| Around the altar, the mosaic floor bears the motifs of spes, fortitudo, fides, temperantia, laus tibi Christe, prudentia, charitas and justitia. In stained glass above the altar are the beatitudes in Latin; outside in the vestibule hangs this plaque: �Pope Paul VI on the Vigil of the Epiphany 1967 prayed in this church and read the people the beatitudes from the gospel of Saint Matthew, which were first proclaimed here. The National Association for Aid to the Italian Missions wishes to perpetuate that solemn moment.� Leave it to the Italians to be so verbose about eight sentences. |
| The Church of the Beatitudes is octagonal (to represent the eight beatitudes), and built from local lava stone and white Jerusalem stone. The inside walls are marble and plaster; the floor mosaic. |