Quam dilecta tabernacula tua Domine virtutum!
How amiable are Your lord of armies mansions!
Ps. 84
The Tabernacle by definition is the chosen place where God becomes flesh. It is the Sancta Sanctorum,a link between Heaven and Earth, a symbol of covenant between God and man. The tabernacle is the God who really makes visible in the Eucharist; he is the God who makes he accessible in the Holy Host. It physically testifies to the existence of a higher principle but above all demonstrates its connection with matter and is in fact a point of anchorage and manifestation on earth.
For the latter reason the tabernacle is of paramount importance as a demonstration of the dignity and sacredness of human existence:facts were not for living as brutes but to follow virtues and knowledge. It is possible (indeed necessary) for the human being to free himself from his nature as a servant in order to be raised as heir and son, thus participating in the divine nature. The true end of human life is therefore high and noble and is union with God.
Precisely as it represents, the attempt of Satan and his hordes, has always been, and still is, to turn off the tabernacles, erase them from the face of the earth. No one should remember the high legacy of their existence anymore, no one should have high ideals and aspire to Heaven, but everything must be reduced to the earth, to the need and to the immediate horizon.
If one understands this, it becomes evident why pessimism and ontological hatred towards Christ (and therefore towards man) permeates today’s society. In this society, which prides itself on being secular and ‘for rights’, not only is man reduced to a mere biological accident and equated with the animal, but he is even classified as a harmful and harmful species for the balance of the ecosystem, thus paving the way for his likely future extermination.
In this vision of the world, presented in a deftly sweetened way, since there are no longer any horizons and spiritual references, man becomes a slave: of himself and of his own appetitites first of all and at the mercy of the various tyrants who alternate, then. They, no longer having to correspond to any ethical norm, since this has become relative and modifiable at will, depending on the profit and the moment, they can in fact do the good and the bad weather without any limit. The only limit will, if necessary, be that imposed by the need to convince the ox people of the expediency of one or other, by appropriate propaganda which will be able to go beyond every window of Overton and make everything believe as necessary. Today we have a glaring example of this. G.K. Chesterton’s statement that when man stops believing in God begins to believe in anything, it is very real and topical.
We must briefly recall how the above could be done. The fundamental moment was certainly luther’s Reformation, named by a distinguished scholar of the 1800s, as the system-erected heresy. It is no coincidence that the “reformer” had in abomination the tabernacles, having tirelessly spent his energies to fight against the Sacrifice of Mass and to reduce the rite from “Sacrifice” to simple “dinner” or “remembrance” and, in this way, completely eliminating the supernatural connection. It is no coincidence that he then spoke of servant will replacing him with catholic free will, thus demonstrating the natural connection between spiritual life and freedom and between denial of spiritual life and slavery.
It could be demonstrated, but this is certainly not the place, how, from this nefarious event of human history, the triumph of wild capitalism has resulted and ultimately the heinous crimes of the various revolutions that have taken place, which are, in fact, part of a single process of subversion of the Order called by Plinio Correira de Oliveira, Revolution. They then culminated in world wars and in the abyss of the dystopian situation of the present day.
All the events that have been summarized above, could have happened precisely because of the suppression of the supernatural connection between God and man. For this reason, the tabernacle, a living emblem of this link, is now a symbol of the struggle for freedom and human dignity.
It is a fact that, as long as there is a tabernacle lit on the face of the earth, there will be hope for man and for humanity as a whole. There’s Jesus! We must be aware of this. The enemy has always wanted to break the connection between man and God and never before does it seem that his work is one step away from completion. Therefore he has in abomination the Tabernacles and everything that comes from them. Our task is to preserve and guard them jealously.
First Tabernacle is the one that, materially and lit, resides in the churches, where the Eucharistic King is kept. It is therefore inextbly linked with the Sacrifice of Holy Mass which, renewing that of NSGC on Calvary, in fact constitutes it forcing the Word to become flesh and dwell there. In reference to this, in the light of the above mentioned in relation to the Protestant Reformation, it is ascertained that precisely the transition from mass in Vetus Ordo to that in Novus,took place under this influence, that is, with the intention of bringing the Catholic Sacrifice closer to the Protestant dinner. In addition to the substantial modification of several points of the rite that you can find described in previous articles, the priest’s position is certainly fundamental: in the Vetus the Priest looks to Calvary and leads the people there, creating in fact a vertical link between the Light that descends and the humanity that aspires to it. In novus,the priest’s position is with his back to Calvary. He turns his back on the Mount of Sacrifice and creates a horizontal, circular connection with the people he looks at, putting himself on an equal footing with it. The supernatural consequences of this certainly cannot be negligible. In addition, together with the general decadence and loss of sacredness there is to be considered the loss of centrality of tabernacle itself that is often relegated to lateral chapels (if not worse) at the expense of the priest’s protagonism (which instead should “disappear” to make way for sacrifice, real protagonist).
According to Tabernacle: the first tabernacle should take us back to the second, consisting of the human soul. Each of us is in fact a temple of God and each of us has the duty to honor and liven up this temple through a spiritual life that leads him to shine. In this sense the adoration of Jesus sacramented in the tabernacle (exterior), has only the effect of taking us back to our inner tabernacle. The purpose of Christian life, unfortunately unknown even to the vast majority of Christians themselves, is intimate union with God, the mystical marriage that is consumed in what has traditionally been called the united way. The Groom is Christ, the bride is the human soul made pure by the purgatoly and made wise in the enlightenive way. The human soul, purified in the crucible of trial and rendered immaculate, then becomes a closed vegetable garden and a sealed source [1] accessible only to the Beloved. Life is transfigured, the Holy Spirit acts as our little ego cancels out: Vivit ego, jam non ego, vivit true in meChristus[2], Christ was born and acts in us.
This inner process is perfectly depicted by what we might consider that Supreme Tabernacle who is the Immaculate, an elected creature who with his fiat allowed the Word to become flesh. It is for us Ianua Coeli,Gate of Heaven, Mediator and Co-Redeemer. Christ cannot be born in us unless we welcome her into our unworthy manger. If, therefore, Satan has an aversion to tabernacles, all the more so for the Virgin Mary and for all that is authentically Marian.
Aware of how vital it is to preserve every Tabernacle, for what is and represents, in this period of Advent, in which we await the birth of the Savior, let us therefore dedicate ourselves with renewed fervour to the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament,aware that indeed, in this world, and especially now, is the only Light in a deep darkness. Come Adoremus …
[1] Can 4, 12
[2] Gal 2, 20-21 Vulgate
