The word is made flesh

"God became very small so that we could become something very great. " Mike said this a couple of times earlier this week but it didn't really hit me until today what this meant.  We were sitting in front of the cave of the Annunciation and it became very clear that God became very very small.  While we were there a group of Spanish pilgrims walked in and began to sing in Spanish the praises of Mary.  What was a little hilarious was the fact they weren't allowed to speak in the sanctuary.  But rules never got in the of many Latins.  Actually, it became a moment of realization of the far-reaching consequences of what took place in that cave.  

When we came up from the darkness of the chapel we journeyed to Galilee where we climbed the mount of the beatitudes and walks down to the sea where Jesus found Peter, James and John washing their nets.   It's one of the most human things to set up a home base. But what was remarkable was to realize that God himself as a man also set up the headquarters.  I'm speaking this blog post into the iPhone while I'm looking across the sea of Galilee at night. I can see the lights on the other side which I'm told is the country of Jordan and it is remarkable to think that our Lord spent many a night staring across the same waters watching and praying.  How could one refuse a few minutes every day to our Lord in prayer? This is the question that I will ponder for many days after this trip and I pray never to forget it.

"Watch and pray. "These words have been at going through my mind since last night.  We have a tremendous privilege of spending one hour of Eucharistic adoration at the church over the rock of agony just outside the Eastern gate of Jerusalem.   It was nighttime the moon was full and the olive trees shown like silver spears in the night.  I could almost hear the sound of the soldiers coming to find him and there we were adoring Him and asking for his strength at the same rock where he was strengthened by the angel.  Earlier that day Mike had taken us up the hill near the town of Bethany to the church of where Jesus wept over Jerusalem and he narrated the entire sequence of events starting from Palm Sunday going through Pentecost mapping it out in the panorama before us.   I can often forget the cohesiveness of the story of the Gospels and the power that they have when we read them continuously.  And then it comes rushing in, like it has so many times in the course of this trip. It's more than just a story its history, with real characters and real places that actually existed and they existed so that he might make us something very great, sons of God.  "And so we are." And we are ever more anxious to see what tomorrow will bring.