Today's first reading starts off simply enough:Paul and Barnabas continued on from Perga and reached Antioch in Pisidia.
But what gets lost in that brief sentence is what that journey entailed. Assuming they travelled by land, it would include:
- More than 100 miles of walking. At a pace of less than 20 miles per day.
- Rugged terrain - with steep roads (over 12,000 feet at its highpoint), deadly flash floods and rapidly changing weather.
- Robbers, robbers, and more robbers. Even the Roman soldiers did not travel on this route without a garrison. In fact, depending on what exact route they took, its quite possible they traversed the most dangerous road in the Roman Empire.
Oh and this was most likely after the little episode where Paul was lashed 39 times, shipwrecked, and fell deathly ill.
It is remarkable what Paul, Barnabas, and other disciples did so that we could learn the faith, isn't it?
God Bless.
3 comments:
Michael,
With that kind of background, today's first reading takes on more meaning than it already had. The early Church always amazes and inspires me. We have the benefit of 2000 years of Salvation History; they did not.
Thanks for another insightful and fact filled post :)
God bless.
Thank you once again Michael for an insightful fact which may well have escaped us. The Bible stories survived all these years even though they did not have our modern communication systems. Just word of mouth and written records.
God bless.
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