XXX.
"WILL YOU ALSO GO AWAY?"
That land was Capharnaum.
We can scarcely picture to ourselves the excitement and enthusiasm which greeted our Lord when His boat drew up on the strand. Whilst the Apostles had been battling with the storm on the Lake, the people had gone round along the beach and got home before nightfall. The wonderful news they had brought of their day in the desert—the teaching and the healing and the evening feast—was now the talk of the city. Everyone wanted to see the mighty Wonderworker, and the crowd on the shore was so great that our Lord and His disciples with difficulty made a passage through. He did not stop to speak there, but led the way to the synagogue of the good centurion. His words on this day were to be more solemn than any He had yet spoken, and the synagogue was the fittest place wherein to speak. The ruler Jairus would be there, so pleased to receive Him and show Him honour, and no doubt the little daughter, too, and her mother.
The lintel above the door of the synagogue—which has been found lying among the ruins—had carved on it a pot of manna with vine leaves and clusters of grapes. As He passed beneath, our Lord will have looked up and thought how fitly it was there that day. For He was going to speak for the first time of that Gift of gifts to us, His own Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament under the appearances of bread and wine.
The Church calls this Sacrament an abridgment of all God's wonderful works. Everything about it is
