From Nazareth to Bethlehem
Most probably, the Holy Family traveled to Bethlehem along the pilgrim’s way. It wasn’t the shortest, but it was the safest and most cost-effective for a poor and pious family. Upon leaving Nazareth, Joseph and Mary went across Cana. Before reaching the Lake of...
God’s covenants with man
A covenant is a bilateral agreement in which each of the contracting parties makes some sort of serious commitment. In the ancient Near East, covenant treaties between heads of nomadic clans, or also between nations and kingdoms, established agreements between peoples...
The “Prophet, Evangelist and Apostle” Isaiah leads us by the hand through Advent
The legacy of Isaiah in the Bible is grandiose. In the fourth century, Saint Jerome, with his passion for Scripture, calls him “not just prophet, but evangelist and apostle” (PL XXIV, 18). As evangelist, he draws a portrait of the Messiah -700 years before...
Mary, conceived without original sin
Until the thirteenth century, many theologians thought that Mary was conceived with the stain of original sin and subsequently, the same as John the Baptist and others, was cured of it in the maternal womb. Even Thomas Aquinas describes it that way, saying that “if...