Braving the humid cold on January 1 in Nazareth, clergy and local Christians inaugurated the new route for visiting the sanctuary of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

“People arriving at the sanctuary didn’t know where to go". There was no route and no indications. This year was a record year as to the number of tourists and pilgrims, while at the same time there was a certain confusion. The project was designed with Jaime Buhigas and Berta Grasset, both from Madrid. They were the architects for the project and are specialists in arranging sacred spaces.

Custodia Web site, Jan 3, 2009

The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.

To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.

Johann Hari, The Independent, Dec 29, 2008

Jesus knew that His Father loved Him because He always did that which pleased Him. What will it take for God the Father to answer His Beloved Son's prayer?:

"I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

Howard Bass, Jan 9, 2009, Special For "Come and See"

The pastor of the Catholic parish in Gaza City described Gaza as "drowning in blood" as hospitals overflowed with patients.

In a message to participants in a special Mass for peace at St. Stephen Church in Jerusalem Jan. 4, Msgr. Manuel Musallam, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Gaza City, wrote: "What you see on television cannot be compared to what is happening. The word love is choking in my throat. ... We are living like animals in Gaza. We cry and nobody hears us. I am asking God for mercy and pray that the light of Christianity continues to shine in Gaza."

By Judith Sudilovsky, Catholic News Service, Jan 5, 009

A Fox News Special Report on Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, and his decision to abandon his Muslim faith, denounce his father's organization, move to America and become a Christian

From Youtube, Jan 4, 2009

A Fox News Special Report on Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, and his decision to abandon his Muslim faith, denounce his father's organization, move to America and become a Christian

"Come and See" continues to bring different prespectives from the Holy Land regarding the Violence between Israel and Hamas.

Rev. Alex Awad writes his point of view of what is happenning in Gaza: "There is no doubt that the Qassam rockets launched against the western Negev and Ashkelon by Islamic militants linked to Hamas cause great pain and anxiety for many Israelis. Most people agree that Israel has the right to defend itself. However Israel , as usual, has overdone it. Israel has a pattern of being extreme. “An eye for an eye” does not satisfy. It has to be more like one hundred eyes for one eye and one hundred teeth for one tooth.

Alex Awad, Dec 31, 2008, Special for "Come and See"

The raging arms conflict between Hamas in Gaza and the Israeli military must stop “immediately,” declared the World Council of Churhces (WCC) on Monday.

Ethan Cole, Christian Post Reporter

Pope Benedict XVI is expected to celebrate a Mass in Nazareth during a four-day visit to the Holy Land next May. The visit is to be the first by a pontiff since John Paul II prayed at Christian sites in the Palestinian territories and Israel eight years ago.

Benedict's pilgrimage -- and the hundreds of thousands of Catholics who are expected to join him for it -- will be especially welcomed by Christians in Nazareth. Compared to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, and Jerusalem, where he died, this community has often felt shortchanged in the biblical tourism sweepstakes.

By Matthew Fisher, VancouverSun, December 21, 2008