Capernaum

   

   

   

   The Jewish city of Capernaum was only a couple of hundred years old when Saint Peter was dipping his nets into the Sea of Galilee. A thousand years later the city was gone. That’s a relatively short life span for that part of the world. The city eventually disappeared from the map completely only to be rediscovered in the 19th century by Franciscan archeologists. 

   Capernaum was one of several fishing villages on the northwest shore of the lake. Most of the inhabitants made a living by fishing or farming and the city also prospered as a stop along the east-west trade route, plus the Roman's kept a garrison there. Once the Muslims took over in the seventh century the town declined. The trade routes changed and the Muslim troops were stationed elsewhere. A series of earthquakes devastated the city so that by the time of the first Crusade in 1099 Capernaum was a ghost town.

   After the Franciscans excavated the city in the late 19th century, it became a popular destination for pilgrims and tourists. The Franciscans still own and administer the site: admission: three schekels. There are several churches in the area, the best known being Saint Peter's, a modernistic structure adjacent to, and over, the house of Saint Peter. All that remains of the house is the outline of the ground floor.

   Jesus spent most of his public life preaching and healing in and around Capernaum. He had been raised  in Nazareth 20 miles to the southwest, but left for Capernaum because his hometown didn't believe him when he revealed he was the son of God. In fact they tried to throw him off a cliff on the edge of town. In Capernaum Jesus performed many miracles - the raising from the dead of Jarius' daughter, curing the centurion's servant, and healing a man's arm in the synagogue on the sabbath, a miracle that made the Pharisees mad enough to want to kill Jesus. The synagogue has also been excavated, at least the one built over the first century synagogue.

    Peter's house is the place where Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever. One Sunday at mass when the gospel was about that healing, our priest told a joke about a man who went to early mass the Sunday that gospel was read. When his wife went to a later mass, the man went with her and of course heard the same gospel reading. For some reason he decided to go to an evening mass. As the gospel was being read, an ambulance passed the church with its siren blaring. The man's pew mate whispered, "I wonder who that is." The man said, "It's probable Peter's mother-in- law. She's had a fever all day."

Capernaum by the Sea