Nazareth

Following our lunch, we continued east toward Haifa and had a beautiful panoramic view of the city and bay from the Mount Carmel mountain range before looping back east and heading to Nazareth. Most of the Mount Carmel range is recognized as a nature preserve. We saw lots of people on bicycles.

It took about 30-40 minutes to reach Nazareth, which in the last 50-60 years has grown into the largest Arab town in Israel with about 70,000 inhabitants. Compare that to Jesus' time when it's estimated that perhaps 100 families made up the village.

With all of the hustle and bustle in the town, it was difficult to get much of a spiritual connection, even as we visited the Church of the Annunciation. The church is built on a site where there has known to be a church since the fifth century. The center of the lower basilica sits above a cave, which is believed to be the home of Mary and the location where she was visited by the angel Gabriel, who told her she would give birth to the Christ child. Under the altar in the cave are inscribed the words "it happened here."

We were fortunate to witness a private communion service in the lower basilica. It gave us a brief opportunity to listen to their prayers and reflect.

Around the courtyard of the church and the inside of the lower basilica are large murals from many countries, donated by Catholic communities.

One interesting item that our guide pointed out to us as we looked at the bronze door at the entrance is that some scholars believe that Joseph's occupation has been mis-translated. They think that he was more likely a stone mason rather than a wood mason (carpenter) because the local topography is very rocky and features very few trees.