Francisco Fernandez-Carvajal Life of Jesus

Transcription

1 Francisco Fernandez-arvajal Life of Jesus opyright Midwest Theological Forum Midwest Theological Forum Downers Grove, Illinois

2 Table of ontents xv xix Prologue to the Second Spanish Edition Prologue to the English Edition 1 hapter I: The Announcement to Zechariah 1 1. The Offering of Incense Joy and Happiness. 9 hapter II: The Annunciation to Mary 9 1. Nazareth Mary A Virgin Betrothed St. Joseph s Age The Virgin s Name The House The Angel The Message Mary s Response From the Descendants of David. The Family Tree. 29 hapter III: The Visitation She Set out on the Road At Elizabeth s House The Magnificat John s Nativity Joseph s Doubts He Received Mary. 41 hapter IV: The Birth of Jesus The ensus of Quirinius Bethlehem. The Birth of Jesus The Shepherds of Bethlehem The Lord s ircumcision They Gave Him the Name Jesus. The Purification of Mary The Presentation of Jesus and Redeeming of the Firstborn.. Simeon and Anna. opyright Midwest Theological Forum

3 hapter I The Announcement to Zechariah 1. The Offering of Incense. 2. Joy and Happiness. 1. The Offering of Incense. Lk 1:5-13 The story that has gone around the world many times began in the Temple of Jerusalem, in the days of King Herod, 1 during one of the ceremonies of sacred worship that was officiated by a priest named Zechariah. He was married to Elizabeth who, like him, belonged to a priestly class, a descendant of Aaron. Both were righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. They had no children and both were advanced in age. They lived in a small village close to Jerusalem, Ein Karem, about seven kilometers (four miles) more or less west of the city. They were related by kinship to Mary. The particular event that marked the beginning of the Redemption took place during the offering of incense in the Holy Place of the Temple. This was an enclosed area containing the altar of the Temple; to the right of the altar stood the seven-branched candelabrum or lampstand, 2 and to the left, there was the table for the showbreads 1. St. Luke calls Herod King of Judea, even though he also reigned over other territories. Now, Herod Antipas was known as the Tetrarch and Herod Agrippa was called simply Agrippa. In other words, here St. Luke is speaking of Herod the Great, who reigned 29 B to AD 4. onsidering that ancient writers took little interest in exact chronology and that their terminology was vague, here St. Luke takes the trouble to be very specific. 2. While people nowadays often call it a candlestick, this in fact supported lamps. The Book of Exodus (Ex 25:31-40) said it was to be made of solid gold and some think it was about 1.6 meters (five feet) high. The seven branches or arms may have recalled the seven planets known to the Ancient Middle East, and also the seven heavens upon which in the Palestinian view God s throne rested, and the seven days of creation. opyright Midwest Theological Forum

4 4 A PERE Sychar M E D I Sebaste (Samaria) Life of Jesus Mount Gerizim Arimathea Jordan River J U D E A Joppa Ephraim Emmaus Jericho Ein Karem Jerusalem Bethany Bethlehem Bethabara (Livias Julias) Dead Sea Azotus Desert Machae Judean Hebron Gaza Masada op yr ig ht w M w w idw.th e eo st lo Th gi e ca o lfo log ru ica m l.o Fo rg ru m Beersheba Zechariah and Elizabeth by James Tissot. Zechariah and Elizabeth lived in Ein Karem, a small village about seven kilometers (four miles) west of Jerusalem, in the hill country. N ABAT E

5 miles Tyre Sidon Sarepta km PHOENIIA Mount Hermon aesarea Philippi ITUREA E A M E D I T E A N S E R R A N Dora GALILEE SAMARIA Nain Jordan River DEAPOLIS Pella PEREA TRAHONITIS horazin Ptolemais apernaum Bethsaida Mount of the Beatitudes Tabgha Magdala Gergesa Sea of Sepphoris ana Galilee Mount armel Tiberias Nazareth aesarea Maritima Antipatris Sebaste (Samaria) Mount Gerizim Mount Tabor Scythopolis Mount Ebal Sychar Gadara Jerash (Gerasa) Azotus Joppa JUDEA Arimathea Ephraim Emmaus Jericho Ein Karem Bethany Jerusalem Bethlehem opyright Midwest Theological Forum Dead Sea Bethabara (Livias Julias) Machaerus Gaza Hebron Judean Desert Masada NABATEA Beersheba

6 7 ht w M w w idw.th e eo st lo Th gi e ca o lfo log ru ica m l.o Fo rg ru m hapter 1: The Announcement to Zechariah Model of Herod's Temple in Ancient Jerusalem. op yr ig Palestine forms roughly a four-sided shape, bordered by Jordan to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the foothills of Mount Hermon (2814 meters [less than two miles]) to the north, and to the south the Negev Desert (a coastal zone forty kilometers [twenty-five miles] wide in the south and five kilometers [three miles] in the northern direction). It is a little less than 25,000 square kilometers (9600 square miles): about the size of Vermont or Macedonia. Distances are not great but had to be traveled normally by foot, and the hills made journeys difficult. Without counting the neighboring regions of Decapolis and Idumea, Palestine had only 500,000 inhabitants, at the time approximately the same as the city of Antioch in Syria. Jerusalem, including the surrounding villages, accounted for less than 40,000 of these residents. For comparison, Alexandria in Egypt had 600,000 inhabitants.

7 m ht w M w w idw.th e eo st lo Th gi e ca o lfo log ru ica m l.o Fo rg ru op yr ig The Annunciation by James Tissot.

8 hapter II The Annunciation to Mary 1. Nazareth. 2. Mary. 3. A Virgin Betrothed. 4. St. Joseph s Age. 5. The Virgin s Name. 6. The House. 7. The Angel. 8. The Message. 9. Mary s Response. 10. From the Descendants of David. The Family Tree. 1. Nazareth. Lk 1:26 Six months after the message to Zechariah, the archangel Gabriel returned to a small town in Galilee called Nazareth. This village is located on the hills by the northern valley of Jezreel or Esdraelon, about 140 kilometers (fifty-four miles) from Jerusalem. 1 Although it was never mentioned on any occasion in the Old Testament, Nazareth must have been inhabited since ancient times, as can be deduced from the excavations undertaken. Usually, the origin of many of these villages and human settlements is due to the existence of a source of water. Nazareth, too, had such a spring, known today as the Fountain of the Virgin, around which the apocryphal gospels wove numerous legends. The spring must be one of the main reasons for the very existence of the village. opyright Midwest Theological Forum 1. It is 343 meters (1125 feet) above sea level of the Mediterranean, and about five kilometers (three miles) to the southeast of Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee and the administrative center on which Nazareth depended. Toward the year 20 of our era, Herod built a new capital, Tiberias, nineteen kilometers (seven miles) northeast of Nazareth, on the shores of Lake Gennesaret (the Sea of Galilee). From that time Nazareth depended on this new capital.

9 18 Life of Jesus radiant with glory: His body was like beryl; his face like the appearance of lightning (Dn 10:6). On the day of the Resurrection, we find the angel at the side of the tomb with an appearance like lightning, and his clothing white as snow (Mt 28:3). In the presence of Mary this kind of appearance was not necessary: it has rightly been said that the splendor of Our Lady s soul was greater than the brilliance of all the angels and archangels. The messenger would have seemed overshadowed by the radiance of the grace present in the Blessed Virgin s soul. op yr ig ht w M w w idw.th e eo st lo Th gi e ca o lfo log ru ica m l.o Fo rg ru m It surprises us that Mary was not astonished. When the angel appeared to Zechariah, St. Luke tells us that he was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him (Lk 1:12). Our Lady was surprised at Gabriel s words, not by his presence. She could even recognize that he was an angel, even though he did not say so. Her interior world was very close to God, even without ceasing to be that of a normal young woman of her time. The supernatural was also her XE MAPIA = X(AIR)E MARIA = HAIL MARY One of the graffiti found in Nazareth, at what is known as the Grotto of the Annunciation. Mary s house was an object of veneration since the earliest centuries. There the Jewish hristian community (early hristians converted from Judaism) soon built a place of worship, and much later, there was a Byzantine church. On what is left of the stones from the early structure, some still partly covered with plaster, it has been possible to decipher numerous inscriptions in different languages.

10 23 Bethsaida apernaum Sepphoris Tiberias Nazareth LI S Mount Tabor PO Dora G A L IL E E DE E D I T E R R A N E A N A S E A Sea of Galilee ana S A M A R IA Jerash (Gerasa) Mount Ebal Sebaste (Samaria) M iver Sychar J U D E A Emmaus Ephraim m Arimathea ht w M w w idw.th e eo st lo Th gi e ca o lfo log ru ica m l.o Fo rg ru Joppa Ein Karem op yr ig Jerusalem Jericho Bethabara (Livias Julias) Bethany Bethlehem Dead Sea Machaerus Desert Facade of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Nazareth is located only about five kilometers (three miles) southeast of the capital of Hebron on which it depended administratively. Later it would Galilee at that time, Sepphoris, depend on Tiberias, to the northeast, in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus spent many years as a subject of King Herod. Judean Azotus Jordan R Mount Gerizim A PERE aza hapter 2: The Annunciation to Mary Masada N ABAT E A

11 hapter III The Visitation 1. She Set out on the Road. 2. In Elizabeth s House. 3. The Magnificat. 4. John s Nativity. 5. Joseph s Doubts. 6. He Received Mary. 1. She Set out on the Road. Lk 1:39 During those days... maybe only a short a time after the announcement by the angel, Mary set out cum festinatione swiftly and joyfully on the road, toward Zechariah and Elizabeth s house. They lived in a small village in Judea s highlands, the hill country near Jerusalem. The angel had announced that Elizabeth, her relative, had conceived a son and was already in her sixth month. Mary had seen in this proclamation a sign that God was calling her to go there. Our Lady desired to tell someone of the happiness that filled her heart. The news was too much for her alone. And the angel had shown her where she could turn since Elizabeth s son would be closely associated with her Son, part of one and the same mystery. One of the purest and most supreme joys of the human heart even the heart of the Blessed Virgin is to share with others what fills a person s soul and produces great joy. And Our Lady s soul exulted with joy. Furthermore, her cousin perhaps her aunt needed assistance. 1 If every woman who is pregnant needs help, how much more a woman who was already elderly! opyright Midwest Theological Forum 1. oncerning Mary s way of life, Bl. Alvaro del Portillo comments: Mary s life on earth was imbued with naturalness and humility. Though exalted above all creatures, she went unnoticed among the women of her time. Our Lady loved and worked in silence, never drawing the attention of those who knew her. Her only concern was to be attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and to care for the needs of souls (Bl. Alvaro del Portillo, Pastoral Letter, August 1, 1989).

12 T R A Life of Jesus 30 H O N ana RANE IS AN SEA IT Sea of Galilee Nazareth MED ITER Mount Tabor D G A L IL E E E AP O LI S S A MA R IA Jordan R m ht w M w w idw.th e eo st lo Th gi e ca o lfo log ru ica m l.o Fo rg ru JU D E A A PERE iver Jerash (Gerasa) Jericho Ein Karem Bethabara (Livias Julias) Jerusalem Desert Dead Sea Judean op yr ig Bethlehem The Visitation by James Tissot. During those days, Mary set out toward the mountainous region of Judea, where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived. She joined a caravan heading toward Jerusalem. It took about four days to get there. N ABAT E A