Hello to all:

Today is Thursday February 2 early afternoon. It has been a couple of days since my last post. On Monday we were in Nazareth for the day and later on in Cana on the way back to Tiberias. I have found it amazing with the number of pilgrims that are here in the Holy Land even now in January as this month and February are the two winter rainy months and cooler. As we travel to the holy sites one see's the same groups and buses that are touring at the same time. There are many languages that one hears people talking and english is not usually one of them. Our group as I mentioned is spanish speaking as the majority. Often Fr. Adam our tour guide gives the information in both languages and Fr. Edward will give the translation for the homily given by the spanish speaking priests.

Back to the Galilee part of our pilgrimage. On Tuesday we went to the sanctuary of Peter's Primacy and celebrated mass outside. The Franciscans often look after the Holy Sites and one will see the fellows with brown albs. The next stop was Capernaum where Jesus spent a lot of his time here as Galilee was the main base for his ministry. The site is has the remains of the temple and where the houses were of the people who lived in the town and it was impressive in seeing the site. After Capernaum we stopped at the Magdala project. If one goes online you can see the discovery of a 1st century synagogue that was discovered when preparing the site for the center construction. To see a active site where they are digging and finding treasures was interesting to see. Next stop was Tabgha where there was the multiplication of the loaves and fish to feed the people. Again to see in person where these miracles took place is special. We stopped at the Mount of Beatitudes which is a mountain and still below sea level as the Galilee region is all below sea level. Beautiful grounds with all the trees and plants which I knew it would be from seeing Elizabeth DVD she had from her trip to the Holy Land. It was cloudy with some sun so we did not see to much of the lake. One could hear fighter jets overhead as they daily are in the air for Syria is above the Golan Heights across the lake and over the mountains to the north west is Lebanon.

That was Tuesday a lighter day it seemed and yesterday Wednesday we had a longer day as we headed to   Haifa and Mount Carmel and than down the coast and back to Jerusalem. I do promise to send some pictures from the last few days soon.

Fr. Mike