Basilica of the Annunciation and St. Joseph’s Church

Dear Friends,

Happy feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! So, in my last post, I talked a lot about my reflections in this place, where “The word here became flesh.” (mind blown again, it’s amazing).

Here! Here the Word became flesh!

Here are more pictures. My information has been drawn from my friend Fr. Samson’s book Come and See. It is amazing and full of helpful information that aids Biblical understanding even if you never get to use it in the Holy Land. Also, all proceeds go to a seminary here.

Anyway, the traffic in Nazareth is terrible. I took a bus there, and we went along fine until we hit Nazareth’s main road. At that point, I should have gotten off and walked because it would have been faster.

When I did get off the bus, there was a sketchy looking park with a sketchier cat that watched me go by and up the street.

You could tell this was a pilgrimage street because there were all the pilgrimage-y doodads and miscellaneous other shops. I did not take a picture because that was unnecessary.

Ok, here is the outside of the wall around the basilica.

It is larger than this picture captures.

Here is the front door. According to Fr. Samson, the façade is designed to look like a tent because the phrase in Greek literally means, “He pitched his tent among us.” (John 1:14)

The side entrance has the Salve Regina written on it.

Walking inside was really cool. It is rather plain and dim but clear. The light was how I imagine the interior of black tents used by desert nomads on a sunny day.

It is rather plain. It’s modern (built in 1969), but really well done. The plainness is good because you are immediately drawn to the center.

I already showed you all this picture.

They have some preserved mosaics and pillars from the church that was built here before but ruined by the various wars and neglect during the crusades.

This is all in the lower level. Above the location of the Annunciation, you can look up through a giant hole in the floor of the second level (it might be called an oculus, but I am not sure).

This is the not-very-dome-shaped dome. It is supposed to look like a lily to symbolize Mary’s purity.

Upstairs is much lighter and airier. This is fitting because the soul is ascending after what it has just witnessed downstairs. (Also, the stairs have poetic descriptions about Mary in Latin on the wall.)

This doesn’t quite capture the light. I’ll try and get a better one for you when I go back.

Here’s the Dome from the outside. It isn’t as lily-like from the outside because it is green. Does Mary have a title associated with the color green?

St. Joseph’s Church is in this same complex. Apparently, it is built over his workshop and/or house.

My picture is a little crooked. Sorry about that…I’m not going to edit it though because I’m writing this late at night and that sounds so hard.

The Holy Family lived here.

They stored stuff in here. Check it out, they had mosaics in their pantry.

It is difficult to imagine people living on a chunk of rock. I had to spend a lot of time looking and thinking about it. But this is what I came up with:

This is my imagination. When you visit, you have to draw your own and show me.

Jesus just lived with Mary and Joseph for 30 years. They did the family things. Chores, school, game nights, travel. I imagine that John the Baptist spent a lot of time at their house since his parents would have died when he was very young. Mary had a household of boys; there must have been long engaging discussion (for them) about the newest kind of bow drills and stats of the local horse races (donkey races? throwing contests? track and field contests? What kind of competitions did the ancient Jews have?).

On the wall around the basilica are mosaics from different countries with Marian devotions. Here are a few of them:

That’s all for tonight, friends. Have a good night (or morning, or afternoon, or whenever the heck you read this).

God bless!

DS