OUTER AND INNER TABERNACLES

 

SAINT IGNATIUS LOYOLA, PRIEST

Exod 40:16-21,34-38; Ps 84:3-6,8,11; Mt 13:47-53

The Selection and Building Process

The encounter between the children of Israel and God on mountain Sinai constituted the people as God’s people. The terrifying sights and events witnessed by the people were to make them loyal to the will of God as their God. It was a covenant ceremony which was to bring the people to become close to God, and own the God that delivered them from slavery in Egypt. While Moses went up to get the written terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments, the people apostatised; they decided to make a god that would be easily accessible to them. They considered the God of Moses far away from them, especially when Moses spent forty days and nights on the mountain. The apostasy of the people reveals to us that fear is never a good driver for the worship of God. We must come to God with understanding and love. Yahweh henceforth started building his relationship with the people on these notes. The passage from Exodus for today relates the setting up of a Tent of Meeting for Yahweh and the people, which would be easily accessible to everyone, and act as a sacred place to keep the terms of the covenant—the Ten Commandments—and provide visible signs and figures for the people’s interaction with Yahweh. “Moses did exactly as the Lord had directed him. The tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month in the second year. … He took the Testimony and placed it inside the Ark. He set the shafts to the Ark and placed the throne of mercy on it. He brought the Ark into the tabernacle and put the screening veil in place; thus, he screened the Ark of the Lord, as the Lord had directed Moses.”  

Since the Tent of Meeting and the Ark of the Covenant were to represent the presence of the Lord, Moses needed to construct them according to the specifications God gave him. The long time he spent with the Lord on the mountain of Sinai enabled him to get the divine specifications for the construction of the Ark of the Covenant and the Tent of Meeting. He, himself, became a tabernacle for God in the process, for the people noticed the glory of God radiating from his face when he came down from the mountain. Each of us would follow or imitate the same process to construct ourselves into a personal Tent of Meeting between us and God. The external Tent of Meeting was to aid the people in becoming a tabernacle where God dwelt. The constant going to the Tent to encounter the Lord and imprint the Ten Commandments on their minds and hearts would bring this about. The personal communions would gradually make the general communion possible. The internal tabernacle is the reason for the external tabernacle, for God must direct every one of our paths, individually and collectively. “At every stage of their journey, whenever the cloud rose from the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would resume their march. If the cloud did not rise, they waited and would not march until it did.”

The parable of our Lord today highlights the importance of the tabernacle of God constructed within and among the people. “The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea that brings in a haul of all kinds. When it is full, the fishermen haul it ashore; then, sitting down, they collect the good ones in a basket and throw away those that are no use.” Collectively, the dwelling of God among his people is to selectively separate those who belong to him from those who are not his and use those he finds suitable to construct his eternal dwelling place. Our faithfulness to God’s presence and his word to us draws us to communion with him in the physical tabernacle. The word of God helps us sort our daily experiences, using the good ones to build the inner tabernacle and disposing of the useless ones. A similar process of discernment led Saint Ignatius of Loyola to a deeper conversion to God. He used it in the formulation of his spiritual rule for discernment of spirits. He was born in Loyola in the Spanish Basque Country. He got injured, as a soldier, in the Battle of Pamplona at the age of 30. He read a life of Christ and a collection of lives of the saints during his long convalescence. The books he read helped him to discover his vocation to devote his life wholly to God. He began his studies, and others joined him later. They offered their service to the Pope for any missionary work after their ordination. He founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), which was very instrumental for the reformation work in 1540. His Spiritual Exercise is a systematic step-by-step retreat for anyone seeking intimacy with God. May his prayers help us grow in communion with God.

Let us pray: O God, who raised up Saint Ignatius of Loyola in your Church to further the greater glory of your name, grant that by his help we may imitate him in fighting the good fight on earth and merit to receive with him a crown in heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.