This section examines historical and archeological questions a visitor may have about Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What do we know of Nazareth in the year 0? Where does our knowledge of the subject stem from?

The principal discoveries in Galilee, Nazareth, the Holy Land, "The Tomb of the Just", Sephoris, the house of the Holy Family and the Casa Santa of Loreto, the daily life of the Holy Family, the daily activities of Joseph, the education of Jesus, the life of prayer of the Holy Family, the places that Mary frequented, etc.

Mary was present in the thought of God from the beginning, she was announced in the Old Testament; she led a very simple life in Nazareth, Israel until the Annunciation which made of her the Mother of God. She then became perfectly united to her Divine Son and to his mission as a Redeemer.

Mary was a privileged witness of his preaching, Passion and Resurrection until his Ascension. She remained with the Apostles following the Pentecost, to sustain the early Church. Her mission as a mother took on a new significance after her Assumption since the Virgin is still brings help to innumerable men and women throughout the world today.

The Lord's Virgin is by His side at each critical stage of the history of salvation. At the Annunciation or on Christmas day (the Incarnation of the Savior), at Cana, during the Public Life, and at the foot of the Cross for the Redemption of the world.

But she is also prefigured from the earliest times in the vision of the Woman who crushes the head of the serpent, as well as through many of the women of the Old Testament, such as Eve, Sarah, Judith, Esther, the mother of the Maccabees, etc. Some images, as well, represent Mary (Paradise, the Burning Bush), figures (Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, the Temple), and prophecies (the Virgin Mother of Emmanuel, the Spouse of the Song of Songs, the Daughter of Zion etc.).

Who is Mary? She is the only woman who is the Daughter, the Spouse and the Mother of God at the same time. She spent more time with Christ than all the others put together. Mary was the first to believe and she became the "New Eve", the true mother of all the living, the strong Woman who is "a helper" for Man in his redemptive mission.

In Mary ever virgin, all pure and undefiled, the "New Creation" begins, a virgin and immaculate creation, which God promised in the Old Covenant to restore His Creation. Jesus Christ took flesh of her flesh and after her Assumption into heaven and her coronation in glory, she is still laboring with great pain to carry on her mission as the Mother of Church...

"All the generations will call me blessed", foretold the young wife of a Galilean carpenter about herself. And this did come to pass in the subsequent centuries:

• all the traditional Churches celebrate her in their liturgies;
• Church doctors and saints have discovered her in the inner chamber of their spirituality and God's people never tire venerating and thanking her, using various forms of devotion, notably the Holy Rosary, pilgrimages and processions on her feast days.

The Virgin is loved beyond the frontiers of the Church, by those who recognize in her the Mother who stays close to each and everyone.

The Virgin Mary is the perfect expression of the Daughter of Zion, whom many Jews are discovering today with a sense of surprise.

She is also deeply venerated in Islam since the Muslims consider her as a Virgin, the miraculous Mother of the Messiah and as the most perfect woman of all humanity.

 The sanctuaries of Harissa, Lebanon, Ephesus, Turkey, Our Lady of Algiers, Algeria, as well as Fatima or Lourdes and so many others, are vibrant testimonies of this astonishing attraction that Mary exerts on the Muslims. Marian sanctuaries in India, Asia and elsewhere welcome multitudes, from all religions.

Art and literature have celebrated the Virgin more than anything.  First of all using icons as a medium of course, but also at an early time in the art of the Catacombs, ivories and ampullae, then with illuminated manuscripts, sculptures, stained-glass windows, the decoration of churches and of cathedrals, Romanesque art, Gothic art, 19th Century art, Modern art, all the history of painting, liturgical art, devotional art, literature, poetry, prayers, mysteries, drama, cinema, music, Gregorian chant, popular songs, etc. have never ceased to celebrate the Virgin - the Mother who is the cause of our joy...

The world is filled with countless places of Marian devotion. Popular sanctuaries such as Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, Czestochowa, Loreto, Aparecida, Altotting, Walsingham, Zeitoun, etc. go hand in hand with smaller, less frequented roadside shrines. All continents and all countries have their own Marian shrines, whose names often recall illustrious miracles or beautiful apparitions: Our Lady del Pilar, Our Lady of Meritxell, Our Lady of N'Gome, Our Lady of Copacabana, Our Lady of Lujan, Our Lady of Mariazell, Our Lady of the Cape, Our Lady of Blachernes, Our Lady of Pompei, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of all Nations, etc.