“Magdala is not a beautiful place.” In 1867, a group of American tourists visited the Lake of Galilee, including the future author of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” Mark Twain. His impressions of Magdala were not what we might call pleasant: “It is thoroughly ugly, cramped, squalid, uncomfortable, and filthy.”

Upon their arrival in the town, it seemed deserted. However, the sound of the American tourists approaching “roused the population, and they all came trooping out—aged men and women, boys and girls, the blind, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled, and scanty raiment (…). They clung to the horses’ tails, clung to their manes and the stirrups, closed in on every side in scorn of dangerous hoofs—and out of their throats, with one accord, burst an agonizing and most infernal chorus: ‘Howajji, backsheesh (stranger, some charity)! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh!'” After crossing the village and calming down the population with some alms, the tourists reached some ruins that, according to their guide, would have been “the veritable dwelling of St. Mary Magdalene.” Mark Twain, with his characteristic sarcasm, points out: “The guide believed it, and so did I. I could not well do otherwise, with the house right there before my eyes as plain as day.” The tourists “took down portions of the front wall for specimens,” and then they left.

Thanks be to God that since those times, Magdala and the Holy Land have changed for the better.