Mount of Beatitudes

The Story

The Mount of Beatitudes is the gentle hillside rising above the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, near Tabgha and Capernaum, that Christian tradition venerates as the setting of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus proclaimed the Beatitudes: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven' (Matthew 5-7). Pilgrims have honored this landscape since the earliest centuries. The pilgrim Egeria, writing around the year 381, described a place on the mountainside near Tabgha where the Savior was remembered to have taught the Beatitudes, and the ruins of a small Byzantine church of the late fourth century survive on the lower slope. While the Gospels do not identify the exact spot, the hill commands a view of nearly all the places of Jesus's Galilean ministry, and generations of pilgrims have found here a setting utterly true to the scene the Evangelist describes. The present Church of the Beatitudes, completed in 1938 to a design by the celebrated architect Antonio Barluzzi, crowns the hill with an octagonal chapel - one side for each Beatitude - ringed by an arcaded gallery overlooking the lake. The church and its gardens are cared for by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who offer hospitality to pilgrims. Both Pope St. Paul VI and Pope St. John Paul II celebrated Mass at the church during their Holy Land pilgrimages, and in March 2000 John Paul II celebrated a great Jubilee Mass near the Mount with an immense gathering of young people. For pilgrims today, the site remains above all a place to sit on the hillside with the Gospel open, hearing the Beatitudes where tradition says they were first spoken.

Church Recognition

The Church of the Beatitudes is a Catholic church maintained under the Association for Assistance to Italian Missionaries and served by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the site has been venerated by Christian pilgrims since at least the fourth century and was honored by papal Masses of Paul VI and John Paul II.

Catholic Teaching

The Beatitudes are at the heart of Jesus's preaching and depict the very countenance of Christ, revealing the goal of human existence and the way of true happiness (CCC 1716-1729).

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Practical

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A church and gardens overlook the Sea of Galilee at the traditional site of the Beatitudes.

Go Deeper

The Mount of Beatitudes guesthouse and church website (https://beatitudes.church) offers visitor information; read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, the Catechism on the Beatitudes (CCC 1716-1729), and Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth, which meditates at length on the Beatitudes.