The Return To Palestine
The Return To Palestine |
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return route they took deviated slightly from the one by which they had
come. It took them to the city of Assiut, and their blessing of this location
was commemorated in the Christian era by the building of the mountaintop
convent of the Virgin Mary.
Eventually, they arrived at Old Cairo, then Matareyah, and on to Mahamma, retracing more or less their steps on their outward journey across Sinai to Palestine. Matareyah has made international headlines in recent times when on April 2, 1968 an apparition of Mary above the cupola of St. Mary Church in Zeitoun (12) was witnessed by thousands of Christians and Muslims, Egyptians and Europeans alike. From Matareyah the Holy Family traveled to Mahammah where the temple was destroyed as they approached it. A well at Mahammah still commemorates the bath Mary and Joseph took there. From there the way led via Belbeis (6) through Wadi Tumilat to the same route on which they came to Egypt. |
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Conclusion
Subsequent Biblical history says it all: at the end, they arrived home, Joseph’s old house, in the small town of Nazareth, in Galilee, in the land of Palestine, from where the message of Christ would in the fullness of time, be heard.
It is estimated that the whole journey from Bethlehem to the return to Nazareth lasted over three years.
They had covered approximately 1242.80 miles. Their means of transport was a weak beast of burden and the occasional sailboat on the Nile. But for much of the way, they must have trudged on foot, enduring the fierce summer heat and the biting winter’s cold, suffering the pangs of hunger and the parching affliction of thirst. It was a journey of much deprivation, which the Child Jesus, His Virgin Mother and Saint Joseph endured in view of their divine mission.
Images:
Page 1 – Georges Trubert, Provence, about 1480-1490.
Page 2 - John of Berry's Petites Heures, France, Paris 14th Century. (90 x 70 mm)
Page 3 – Master of Jean Rolin II, French 1455.
Page 6 – Coptic Logo Icon
Page 14 – Coptic Art, see: www.egyptvoyager.com/
Page 16 – see: http://pharos.bu.edu/cn/exhibits/Pictures.html#icons
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17 – Marian Library Archives