What I Saw In The Holy Land, part 7This is the Church at Cana of Galilee --clearly not on the day we visited, when there was a drenching rain. In the Holy Land there is always more to see, but this is one place I really felt we shortchanged. There are two cities named Cana --this one, and one slightly further North, which also claims to be "the place." But in my non-expert opinion, this is the place, based simply on the excavations that began very recently --1997. Go to this Franciscan site to see the amazing photos of the excavations and everything they've found.
One thing I wanted to show you and couldn't find was a photo of an ancient stone water jug dating to the time of Christ that is preserved in the crypt here. No one claims that it's one of the actual vessels where Christ's first miracle took place, but it's so helpful to just see the thing. If you've been picturing jugs women could balance on their heads, forget it --this is an enormous tank, more like a cistern (I'd compare it to the amphora buried in the ground at Ostia Antica outside Rome, although not quite so big perhaps). The Gospel says they held some 30 gallons of water, so I guess I shouldn't have been astonished at the size of the thing, but I was. They've also found pottery pitchers of the type probably used to bear the wine to the steward of the feast, which makes the whole scene easier to imagine --including why the whole matter should have been secret from the other guests. If Christ was hanging out by the water cistern, the rest of the party would have been paying him no mind.
As I say, it was pouring rain on this day of our tour --at least in the morning. It made the cold more penetrating, but it was also mood-setting, calming some of the excited chatter on our bus so a gal could get lost in thought. As we were breezing past the undulating hills of the region, I was thinking how they almost look like enormous waves coming at you. As if there had been a great flood, with waters abruptly receding, leaving the land still in its shape. 
(This is a frequent thought of mine looking at landscapes, mountain ranges or clouds: how everything looks as if it travels by wave --although I don't know what a geologist or physicist would say about that.) Anyway, I bring this up only by way of saying that through free-association I was thinking about the great flood at precisely the moment I saw this, which seemed like a gift.
(This is a frequent thought of mine looking at landscapes, mountain ranges or clouds: how everything looks as if it travels by wave --although I don't know what a geologist or physicist would say about that.) Anyway, I bring this up only by way of saying that through free-association I was thinking about the great flood at precisely the moment I saw this, which seemed like a gift. 
