Sea Sea!

7/08/11

Ship to shore

Looking at an ancient sailing vessel, sailing on the Sea of Galilee, eating fish from the sea, visiting Capernaum and swimming in the sea!

This morning we headed to the site where, in 1986, a first century fishing vessel was found, carefully excavated by hand and using Styrofoam and recreated. After viewing the boat and some souveniring shopping we headed to the pier and onto a sailing vessel. After sailing from a while and singing the Aussie anthem with the raising of our flag we celebrated a special mass and read the gospel story of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. The gospel message that spoke to me was when Peter said, “Lord save me.” Jesus immediately  reached out his hand and caught him. Jesus does this for all of us if we ask and allow him. It also reminded me of the times of doubt we have and that if we don’t doubt and trust in him we can accomplish so much for him and ‘walk on water.’ We kicked back with some local tunes that we danced around the boat to and had a dance circle – even getting the Archbishop up for a dance.  

Following our mass we had a traditional St Peter’s fish lunch. We were given the whole fish and I had to work out how to safely get all the fillet. It was tasty as was the entrée salad, bread and hummus.

Next we visited Capernaum, Jesus’ second home town and place of teaching. Again it was an octagonal church and some of the original mosaic flor has been relocated outside and replaced by a glass floor so that we can see the ruins below. Outside was the remains of a synagogue.

To finish the day we went to the sea to finally have a swim in the Sea of Galilee and in the Jordan River. I can now say I have swum across the Jordan (all 20 metres of it) and skimmed a rock all the way across the Jordan!