Tabernacle – Have you wondered why we have tabernacles in our churches at all? They are not there by accident. What is their purpose? Yes, they are Our Lord’s answer to the plea at Emmaus, “remain with us, Lord.”
First, although we cannot see him, except in faith, Jesus has a mouth he can speak through, eyes he can see with, a Heart he can love through. Despite his silence and stillness in the tabernacle, Jesus Christ speaks and acts.
Second, what is Jesus doing in the tabernacle? He is – he says – “to be.” He does not add any other verb that will specify the aim, the way, or the duration of the act of being. Do not assume that he is there just for consoling, illuminating, healing, feeding ... but first simply that he is there. ... I assure you, very few words will express more activity, and more love, than the verb, to be.
Then, third, Jesus, in the tabernacle, looks at me. He looks at me always. He looks at me everywhere. He looks at me as if he doesn’t even have anyone else to look at but me. Why? Our Lord is like a mother gazing at her sleeping boy. Inquire of the mother, who, without talking and barely breathing, spends hours next to her son as he sleeps. Why does she do this? She will answer, “I just want to look at my son.” … And do you know what causes her sadness? It is that she will not be able to follow her beloved son with her gaze, all the way through his life, now as a child and later as a man. Yet Our Lord can gaze on us always and everywhere, from the tabernacle, and he does.
Fourth, are there many important people who know you and who are interested in saying something to you? We have a much wiser, wealthier, and more powerful King who is waiting for us at any time of the day or night in the little palace of his tabernacle. He is there to say to each one of us, with interest and infinite love, the right word that we need to hear at that hour.