Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 404

He took the commandments and put them in the ark; he placed poles alongside the ark and set the propitiatory upon it. He brought the ark into the Dwelling and hung the curtain veil, thus screening off the ark of the commandments, as the LORD had commanded him.


Catholics know the Ark of the Covenant by our reverence for the tabernacle. Within that sacred strongbox we hold the Blessed Sacrament for our devotion and for the homebound sick. Throughout the year we keep a candle lit by the tabernacle to indicate the presence of the Sacrament. That single light burning in the sanctuary is a great comfort in the dark nights and the gloomy days that sometimes overwhelm us. 
We brought the custom straight from the Temple in Jerusalem to churches throughout the world. Before the Ark was revered in the temple it was kept in a tent at the Jewish shrine of Shiloh. And before that it traveled with the Hebrews as they dwelt in the Sinai Peninsula. 
Always, the Lord is with us. 
The Ark housed the clay tablet of commandments, the Law which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. Long before there was digital storage, paper, sheepskin or papyrus there was the clay tablet. It was useful for children in school because it could be erased like a chalkboard and reused. Once it was fired the clay became stone and the writing was "set in stone." 
The stone tablets of God's law were kept and revered in the same manner as Americans preserve original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Visitors can see these manuscripts in a darkened chamber during visiting hours in the National Archives in Washington DC. (When people tell me the marriage license is "only a piece of paper," I remind them that our Constitution is also a piece of paper.)
The Tabernacle forcefully reminds us of God's abiding presence with us. The Lord is not satisfied with the distance between heaven and earth. Nor is God willing to remain at such a safe distance from us. If he appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai and scared the bejesus out of the people who remained at a safe distance, he shows us in Jesus his readiness to approach us more quietly in the Blessed Sacrament. 
Catholics believe devoutly in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. We believe that we literally eat his flesh and drink his blood during the Mass. We cannot and do not need to explain this mystery, we accept it as the word of God. 
The great American author Flannery O'Connor described her faith to a friend in a letter:

I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, A Charmed Life.) She departed the church at age 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. The people who took me were Robert Lowell and his now wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. Well, towards morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought it was the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it." That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable. (The Habit of Being, pg 125)

 Amen, Sister Flannery, Amen!