The Kinneret

Early in the morning on Friday I went to pray in the Galilee area, known as the Kinneret in Hebrew. Popular belief is that the name of this lake comes from the word kinnor, an ancient Jewish harp/lyre, because it's shaped like a kinnor. My group's first stop was Capharnaum. The 1st century Kfar Naum, or town of Naum had a thriving fishing industry with a large fleet of fishing boats stationed about a mile outside the town. We approached a Franciscan monastery, where the Catholic monks bought the land that contained the ancient town of Capharnaum and went through the iron gates. It looked like an old abbey with gardens surrounding it, except as we walked to the far side of the garden, there lies a whole village of ruins concealed by the foliage. The Franciscan archaeologists and friars dug down and excavated the entire town in recent years. We went to see the House of Peter (see the insula sacra on the map), which is the authentic site, based on historical documentation and archaeological evidence. His house was the second largest in Capernaum, a town built beside a road to Rome, a strategic place to spread good news. (The largest house there belonged to the head of the synagogue. ) The Franciscans built a church building that's suspended above Peter's house so that all can view the remains of the house beneath. Was Peter a poor fisherman? Far from the truth, he was the top business man in town! Local historians believe he ran the largest fishing business for the community. It was this influential man that Jesus asked to come follow him, and Peter left everything he had to be with Jesus.

After a time of bible study and prayer in the remains of the Synagogue Jesus preached in, we took our bus to the mountainside that is believed to be the site of the Sermon on the Mount. This place has fabulous acoustics. On the road there, minutes before we saw the gates to the site, I heard a choir singing high praises and worshipping God softly. I thought- there must be a convent nearby with a choir or something, or maybe someone was playing a CD on the bus. I said to Katherine, my Aussie buddy who sits next to me every day on the bus "Hey, do you hear that singing?" She said, "no." She paused a moment and a big grin spread on her face. She said "The Lord must be really blessing youuu" in her Aussie accent. I still heard the choir singing so I asked another person, and they couldn't hear it either. At that moment I was in awe and Katherine said "Must be angels singing." I heard it for several minutes after that. So beautiful. Then, one by one, groups of pilgrims coming to the site began to sing worship songs. Our group also followed suit and joined the choir.