Israel pilgrimage, third in series

Hello, everyone.

My last post was the end of our first day visiting holy sites. Today's post covers the beginning.

We headed out from breakfast and over to Cana. As many of my readers already know, Jesus' first miracle was at Cana, when he turned water into wine at a wedding. (This miracle is recounted in the gospel of St. John.) The church at that site has become a place where couples renew their wedding vows.

There were about 7 couples, including us, who wished to renew vows. As the Mass schedules at the various shrine churches are somewhat busy, and we needed to be out of the church before the next pilgrim group came in to have Mass, after Mass we all did our vow renewal "Moonie style"--all of us gathered in the front in our pairs and Father led us in unison recitation of the lines. Then he blessed all of us. (For those who don't remember, Sun Myung Moon famously used a football stadium to conduct a mass wedding of his followers once, something like a hundred couples. Pictures are floating around and likely on the web someplace. Thus my reference to "moonie style.")

The Franciscan sisters convent has a window onto the church courtyard and couples can purchase a lovely certificate to fill out in remembrance of their vow renewal. 

The pictures in books and online do not convey how intimate the space is. This is not a large church. The brown at the right in the photo is the metal gate into the courtyard.

Above the door, apparently during recent renovations, the Jerusalem cross was placed. Like almost all of the churches in the Holy Land, this building is not ancient. The centuries, and conquerors, were not kind to the older buildings and most of the sites have relatively recent structures for the pilgrims and visitors.

After Mass and wedding renewals, our guide showed us the way to a shop, owned by Christians, and the shop owner gave us all a shot of wedding wine. Wedding wine, at least in this area, is really, really sweet.

The shop also sold other items, including pomegranate wine which, when we drank it a couple of days later was quite nice. Their standard packaging included foam padding to prevent bottles breaking in luggage. Very nice!

The street that led to the church had this interesting item. I think it's a sundial. The wires hanging down, if they aren't to steady it in winds, are a mystery. If they are actually guy wires, they seem a little loose. IMHO. The ones on power lines are always taut.