Three Tabernacles

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

December 24, 2023

4th Sunday of Advent

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122423.cfm

2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16     Ps 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29

Rom 16:25-27    Lk 1:26-38

Today, I want to talk about three tabernacles. The word tabernacle means ‘place of dwelling.’  Tabernacle #1 is from 2 Samuel; King David wants to make God a home:

When King David was settled in his palace, and the LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God dwells in a tent!"

Before the Temple was built by King Solomon, the Tabernacle was the moveable tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant while the Israelites were nomads in the desert. The Tabernacle Tent was 45 feet long, and The Ark of the Covenant was placed in a fifteen-foot cube towards the back part of the Tabernacle, called the Holy of Holies.  

The Ark was the link between God and Earth, and it was in the Holy of Holies where the high priest could enter only once a year on the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, is the highest holy day of the Jewish calendar. The High Priest would make an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people.  This act of paying the penalty for sin brought reconciliation between God and His people. After the blood sacrifice was offered to the Lord, a goat was released into the wilderness to symbolically carry away the sins of the people. This "scapegoat" was never to return.

In a rarely-read passage in the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant is hidden by Jeremiah. We hear of this in the Second Book of Maccabees 2:4-7

The same document also tells how the prophet, …, ordered that the tent and the ark should accompany him, and how he went to the very mountain that Moses climbed to behold God’s inheritance. When Jeremiah arrived there, he found a chamber in a cave in which he put the tent, the ark, and the altar of incense; then he sealed the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up intending to mark the path, but they could not find it. When Jeremiah heard of this, he reproved them: “The place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy.”

No, Indiana Jones did not find the Ark of the Covenant, and no, it’s not stored deep in some government archival building. Remember the Prophet’s words:

The place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy.

This brings us to Tabernacle #2, the Ark of the New Covenant, which is Mary, the Mother of God.  Through Jesus, God is about to gather all of His people, whether Jew or Gentile, when the word becomes flesh in Jesus through Mary as the angel Gabriel speaks these words to her in today’s Gospel.

"Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end."

We know that through Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, sin entered the world. Through Mary’s yes, her Fiat, and the birth of Jesus, a man and a woman, that first sin can finally truly be reversed. Now is the time for God to gather His people together again and show them mercy. Mary is not only today’s second Tabernacle; Mary is also a new Ark of a New covenant.  Through her yes, salvation entered, the Word was made Flesh, and Jesus Christ was born.

So what could be the Tabernacle #3? Our church today has a lot of similarities to the Old Testament Tabernacle tent. When you enter a church, you will see golden lampstands. Back then, there was, to the right, a table for the Bread of the Presence. Today, to the right of our altar is the Credence Table that holds the unconsecrated bread that will soon become the True Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Just before the giant curtain, there would also be an altar of incense. We have our altar here, and we also incense it at the beginning of most of our Masses. Finally, against the back wall, but no longer hidden, is the tabernacle that holds the remaining consecrated hosts after Mass. Jesus, the Son of God, is present in our tabernacle right now.  But that is not the third and final tabernacle I’d like to discuss. Tabernacle #3 is us. Once we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we become a tabernacle; we hold within us our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is so important to remember that! After we receive Communion, we should return to our pews, kneel, and pray. Offering prayers of thanksgiving for finding us worthy to receive Him.  

A few weeks ago, a parishioner asked me why we have rules of not eating an hour before Holy Communion but no rules for after receiving. I didn’t know, so I looked it up, and here’s what I found from Catholic.com:

There is no present requirement for fasting after  Communion, but many books have recommended, as an act of reverence, not eating or drinking for 15 minutes after receiving –about as long as the sacred Species remains intact. If one remains at Mass until the closing blessing, one likely observes this recommendation even without realizing it.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori tells us:

“There is no prayer more agreeable to God, or more profitable to the soul than that which is made during the thanksgiving after Communion.”

 

Hope in a Colt?

Homily for August 10th, Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Below are the links for the readings:

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/081119.cfm

In today’s readings, at first glance, I thought things seemed a bit unfair.  From our first reading out of the book of Wisdom we hear:

The night of the Passover was known beforehand to our fathers...

Then in the Gospel from Luke, we get this:

You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

At the surface, this just doesn’t seem right, why don’t we get to know beforehand when the Son of Man will come?  Why did our fathers in faith get to know ahead of time? 

Back in the Old Testament, they had faith in the hope of a savior that is to come.  Today we know that savior very well as Jesus Christ, the man who came to undo the sin of Adam, to make things right so that at some point we may have eternal salvation with him.  So when I reflected a bit deeper into things I realized that today we actually have the upper hand because we have the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Today we have faith in the hope that Jesus Christ will someday return again.

When I was researching what the Church teaches about Christ coming back I found this alarmingly current paragraph 672 in the Catholicism of the Catholic Church

Before his Ascension, Christ affirmed that the hour had not yet come for the glorious establishment of the messianic kingdom awaited by Israel which, according to the prophets, was to bring all men the definitive order of justice, love and peace. According to the Lord, the present time is the time of the Spirit and of witness, but also a time still marked by "distress" and the trial of evil which does not spare the Church and ushers in the struggles of the last days. It is a time of waiting and watching.

So where did that leave me aside from a little bit terrified?  Believe it or not, it left me with hope. Why hope when we read this coupled with the recent readings like last Sunday where we heard God speak to the rich man in Luke:

You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”

Our hope is contrary to our world and our society today, our hope is a heavenly one.  In the reading from Hebrews we see that our hope relies on our faith :

Brothers and sisters: Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.  

Quite often I find myself placing my hope and faith in physical things, things that I can touch and see.  A lot of us probably do this from time to time.

I remember many years ago, back when I was in college, I purchased my first brand new car.  A Colt hatchback with the luxurious spring package. It only had eight miles on it when I picked it up.  I was a bit nervous about the hefty 7,000 dollar price tag and paying it off but I felt I could handle it, I was a responsible adult after all. One of the places I worked at back then was St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Bridgewater and I used to play tennis with one of the priests stationed there and told him I could pick him up and drive that night, I wanted to show off my new ride after all!  He got in it, looked around, and instead of congratulating me he asked me an odd question. He asked if my new car gave me happiness. Yes, I replied, of course. He then explained to me that material things can do that, they can bring us happiness but that happiness can be fleeting. Why he continued, because my car will indeed eventually break down and wear out one day, and that happiness that I am feeling will break down with it.  

Of course, at this point, I’m thinking to myself, I used to like this priest but what a mean person he is, maybe I’ll let him walk home after tennis.

His lesson continued.  What you want Kevin, is joy and joy can only be found in one place, Jesus.  Once you have that joy it cannot be taken away. Life will have good and bad, happy and sad, life and death but if you have faith in Christ it will bring you joy that will last through all those bad times, for example, when our new cars break down. The true joy of who Christ is, and what he has done for us cannot be taken away.  He told me that is what I need, that is what will last.

That day, I remember thinking that I will show no mercy on the tennis courts to this unkind priest.  Today, however, I realize this story is still etched in my brain and I can begin to understand the wisdom in what he was trying to tell me.  The wisdom that Saint Paul was telling us in the second reading from Hebrews. Abraham and Sarah demonstrated faith when they obeyed God and that faith led them to the promised land, that faith gave them the ability to have a child and it was through that same faith that they were able to have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Today our faith and hope belong in Jesus Christ, our savior.  He didn’t come to earth to make our lives easy and happy. No, He came to earth to teach us that the road to Heaven, however difficult is one we should follow and stay the course until the end so that our eternity may be joy-filled.  He came to earth to prepare us so that when our number is up we will be prepared with girded loins and lit lamps.

As St. Athanasius said:

The Eternal Word, the Son, was in no way degraded by receiving a human and mortal body. Rather, he deified what he put on; and more than that, he bestowed the gift of his divinity upon our humanity.