Cana

We arrived there in late afternoon, walked uphill (almost everyplace we traveled was uphill) to the Franciscan church built in 1881. As in other places in the Holy Land, there is no consensus as to where Cana's exact location is, but for now, it seems historians have settled on a village in Galilee just outside of Nazareth, now called Kefar Kana.

For seven couples in our group, the visit to Cana was the experience of a lifetime, for at Cana, in the presence of the rest of us and Father Francisco, they renewed their wedding vows. Afterwards, we all gathered in the beautiful courtyard, which was discovered in excavations that also unearthed an ancient synagogue and mosaic pavement. We toasted the couples with wine that is reputed to be of the same quality as that which was made two thousand years ago. I thought about being there, sampling the wine of Jesus' first miracle.