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JMJ
Look, and make it according to the pattern, shown thee on the mount (Ex. 25.40).
Thus was Moses commanded, even to the minutest details, in
setting up the Tent of Hebrew worship with all the ceremonies to be performed
by the priests. And it was the same pattern
followed in constructing the great Temple in Jerusalem.
However, the Hebrew Tent of worship and the Temple of
Jerusalem, with its vast ceremonial, looked forward to their perfection in the
Temple of the New Covenant purified and sealed by the Most Sacred and Precious
Blood shed by Our Lord on the Cross – the Catholic Church with its traditional
sanctuary. The former [tabernacle] indeed had also justifications of divine
service… which is a parable of the time present (Heb. 9.1,9). Now, when Our
Lord came, being a High Priest of the
good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle
(Heb. 9.11), the shadowy forms, emblems, types, and ceremonies of Old finally
had to give way into the substance they had foretold.
The Catholic tabernacle, wherein is reserved the Real
Presence of the God-Man, is set at the very center of the sanctuary just as the
Ark of the Covenant in which was a golden pot that had manna (Heb. 9.4) was at the
very center of both the Tent and Temple of Old; and because there God dwells in
the midst of His people, it occupies the most exalted place in the sanctuary being reserved on the High Altar raised by steps. And the Lord
came down upon mount Sinai, in the very
top of the mount (Ex. 19.20).
Why is the tabernacle, wherein is contained the Bread of Life, reserved on the high
altar? The Word of God determines that the most holy of the sacrifices… by a
perpetual right (Lev. 24.9), that is the bread… for a memorial of the
oblation of the Lord (Lev. 24.7), shall
always be reserved upon the most pure
table* before the Lord (Lev.
24.6). Fulfilled also in the Catholic High Altar are the altar of incense (standing
just at the entrance to the Holy of
holies separated by a curtain, see the first picture above) and
the altar on which the bloody sacrifices were offered (outside the tent in the desert or without the building called the Holy Place of the Temple) so that all the three
altars of the OT rite of worship were at last perfectly united into one on
which is being offered the most pleasing, sweet, and the most holy sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Our Lord. "There is question, not so much of the material presence of the tabernacle on the altar, as of a tendency to which we would like to call your attention, that of a lessening of esteem for the presence and action of Christ in the tabernacle... To separate tabernacle from altar is to separate two things which by their origin and nature should remain united" (Pope Pius XII, address to the 1956 Liturgical Congress in Assisi).
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* In the first picture above, see the table, which
prefigured also the Catholic credence table on which are prepared the bread and
wine to be consecrated at High Mass and other sacred vessels, at the right
side of the ministering priest, opposite to it are the seven burning candlesticks. A table on which is placed the most holy of the sacrifices is an
altar.
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The seven burning candlesticks of Old are still to be seen at
the traditional Catholic sanctuary with the seventh one, He Who Is… the Light of the World, burning at the very center of
the sanctuary.
After Vatican II (1962-1965)...
After Vatican II (1962-1965)...
 |
| the Padre Pio Pilgrimage church |
the high altar destroyed, replaced by a "table";
the tabernacle, wherein is contained the Real Presence of Our Lord, booted out
the tabernacle, wherein is contained the Real Presence of Our Lord, booted out
from its
exalted central place:
They have taken away my Lord;
and I know not where they have laid Him(Jn. 20.13)
exalted central place:
They have taken away my Lord;
and I know not where they have laid Him(Jn. 20.13)
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