Is There a Tabernacle On Your Altar?

HOLY CROSS TRACTS

December 1916

By Father James O. S. Huntington, O.H.C.

IS THERE a Tabernacle on the altar in your parish church? "No, I don't think so; but just what do you mean by a Tabernacle? I am not sure that I understand correctly."

A Tabernacle is a receptacle in which the Blessed Sacra­ment is kept. Usually it is a part of the structure of the altar, a sort of box in the middle of the reredos, carefully constructed and lined with silk, and with a door opening just above the surface of the altar. This door is kept locked, the key being in the custody of the parish priest. The Blessed Sacrament is placed in a gold or silver chalice called a "ciborium," on which fits a cover of the same material. There is a veil over this chalice. Another veil of lace hangs inside the opening of the Tabernacle. A red light suspended before the altar tells of the presence of the Blessed Sacra­ment in the Tabernacle. Once a week, ordinarily at a cele­bration of the Holy Eucharist, the priest receives the Sacra­ment kept in the Tabernacle, and places in the ciborium some of the newly consecrated wafers.

"Thank you. That answers many questions which have come to my mind from time to time. But now may I ask you, in all reverence, why has this custom of keeping the Sacrament after Communion been observed in the Church? When did it begin?"

Of that we have very definite information. The cus­tom of keeping the Blessed Sacrament, after the service of the Holy Communion was over, in order to carry it to the sick and others who could not be present, must have been well established within a few years after the death of St. John. St. Justin Martyr flourished about the year of our Lord 140. Some years before his death he wrote, in the first account we have outside the Bible of the administration of the Holy Communion: "And to those who are absent they carry away a portion" [that is to say a portion of the consecrated Bread], and again: "And to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons." Not long after the time of St. Justin Martyr we have unquestioned evidence that in some places devout Christians were allowed to take the Blessed Sacrament to their own homes, and communicate themselves for several days, before they had taken any other food on that day.

"Then, as I understand, the first reason for keeping the Sacrament after the service was over was to give communion to the sick, or to those who were not present?"

Yes, that is quite true. Although the present custom of using for the Blessed Sacrament such a Tabernacle on the altar was not uncommon in Europe until the year 1000, and not in England until near the time of the Reformation.

"Ah, I am glad you speak of the Reformation, because I have always been taught that the Reformation put an end to the custom of Reservation. Is there not something in one of those Articles at the end of the Prayer-Book about it being wrong to reserve the Sacrament?"

Let me explain that. Here is a Prayer-Book, and this is just what is said, in Article XXVIII: "The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped."

"Yes, that's it. What can you say to that?"

I quite understand that it may seem as though the Church forbade those four things. But it has always been understood, by the most careful students of the history of the Articles, that they were drawn up for the purpose of furnishing some common standing-ground for two parties in the Church, which differed in many matters although agreed in her fundamental doctrines. So that we are not to make the language of the Articles mean the most that it might mean, but rather the least—the bare, literal statement. This in all fairness, for otherwise the very purpose of the Articles would be frustrated.

Now it is perfectly true that we have no word of our Lord which ordains or directs the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. But that is true also of a vast number of other things—the observance of Sunday, the communion of women, the blessing of the water for Baptism, making the sign of the cross, candles on the altar, and so forth.

To be sure, not all Church people have agreed about this, but now the matter has been put beyond dispute. At the General Convention at St. Louis the question of reserv­ing the Blessed Sacrament for the sick was considered, as a practice in regard to which the Church was free to make any provision it pleased. Not a word was said about chang­ing Article XXVIII; it was simply taken for granted that the Article did not forbid reservation but simply stated that it was a subject for ecclesiastical provision, and not one as to which our Lord had given direction.

"Yes, that seems very plain. But is the keeping of the Blessed Sacrament on the altar intended solely for conve­nience in carrying It to the sick?

No, indeed. As the Church has gone on through the centuries, new needs have arisen and new desires have been felt. This has been even more true in the western world than in the "changeless East." In our Lord is provision for the needs of every age and race. In Him are "hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Not one or many generations can exhaust the "riches of His grace." His kingdom is "like a householder which bringeth out of his treasure things new and old."

"You mean that we may find in Holy Communion more than the Christians of the early days found in It?"

Yes. It has been so in regard to Confirmation. For some fourteen hundred years it was simply the completion of Baptism. Infants were confirmed; they were anointed with oil blessed by the Bishop as soon as they were bap­tized. Four hundred years ago in the West—in the East the original use has never been changed—Confirmation was postponed till "years of discretion" and it became the occa­sion and opportunity for the child baptized in infancy to renew "the solemn promise and vow" made for him, thus by his own intelligent and deliberate act dedicating his life to God. This use of Confirmation is unquestionably not "the purpose for which it was instituted" though entirely congruous with it.

"For what other purpose is the Sacrament reserved besides that of giving Communion to the sick?"

That Christians may have the joy of coming into our Lord's Sacramental Presence, not only for the few minutes when He is present under the forms of Bread and Wine in the Service of Holy Communion, but at any hour, day or night.

"I had never thought of that."

But just consider for a moment. The occasions where there is sudden need for the Blessed Sacrament are, on the whole, rare. Of course in a general hospital a call to com­municate a dying person is likely to come at any moment. And the City Mission of New York makes provision that the Blessed Sacrament be reserved by its chaplains in public hospitals on purpose to meet such calls. On the other hand there are churches in which the red light burns where only once or twice a year is there actual need of carrying the Blessed Sacrament to the dying. In a large conventual establishment which I visit, there is Reservation on three altars, sometimes four.
Do not forget that the craving of souls for the Presence of their Saviour in all the tenderness and sympathy of His Sacred Manhood is unceasing, and ever renewed in eagerness of desire. It hides in hearts that know it not until they are awakened to it by a sudden real­ization that: "He is here." Only today a man told me that in his youth he went into St. Ignatius' Church when it was down on Fortieth Street. A red light was burning before the altar. He had no sort of idea of what it meant. Yet a sense of warm and gracious welcome came to him, and he felt that he was not alone. Of course there are hundreds of thousands of people who have had a like experience. I remember myself how, when I had gone to Europe in ill-health, and was traveling alone in Germany, away from all relations and friends, scarcely able to understand or speak the language about me, the red light in the Tabernacle in one church after another brought a wonderful assurance that I was at home.

Now, why, I ask you, should such spiritual comfort and joy as this be denied to Christians in their sorrows and trials, the anxieties and alarms of this troublesome world? Why should not every parish altar have its Tabernacle, not alone for possible exigencies of the sick, but for the needs and aspirations of all?

Let me read you a passage from a sermon preached a few years ago. "It is a big Bavarian village church. I am in a corner, but the rest of the broad nave is empty. Why does the west door tremble and move in that odd fashion? Surely no draught can shake it in that manner, it is too heavy. Something is trying to get in. A dog? No, it is Wilhelm, age five. There is an awful moment when it appears that the big door is going to crush him, but he eludes it skilfully, and patters cheerfully up the nave in his tiny hobnailed shoes; Wilhelm of the bare legs and knees and short knick­erbockers, the magnificent braces strapped over the white shirt, and the brave hat with the eagle's feather. He is all alone. He is five years old. But he is full of business. Up to the top he goes and is engulfed and lost to view in an immense pew. The church is big and empty; it is full of twilight shadows; great white figures of the saints look down from the altar piece. Amidst this awful silence Wil­helm prays. He is not in the least alarmed, for above him in the gloom of the chancel a friendly star is twinkling, and the star is saying in language which Wilhelm understands: 'Jesus is here.'"

Is there any reason why such a scene as that should not be found in our churches; why Christ upon His altar-throne should not draw men and women and little children to Himself?

"But if people learned to come to our Lord in the Tabernacle would they not feel that they had left Him be­hind when they went away?"

Exactly the opposite is the actual fact. It is those who are found most often before the Tabernacle who carry most constantly the consciousness of our Lord's Presence in their hearts.

"But is not this to localize the presence of God?"

Don't be frightened by a word. It is not we who "localize" God. He did so Himself when He became Man. Do you not say in the Creed He "came down from Heaven ?" Well, if, knowing what you do now, you had looked in the manger in Bethlehem on Christmas morning would you not have said: "There is God on the straw ?

"Yes, I hope I should."

And if you had seen our dear Lord on the Sea of Galilee would you not have said "There is God in the boat"?

"Yes, of course."

And you believe that He does give Himself to us beneath the veils of Bread and Wine?

"Yes, that is why I make my Communions."

Then is there any reason why you should not say "There is God in the Tabernacle"?

"I don't suppose there is, but it seems strange."

It is strange—stranger than anything we could imagine or dream. There is only one thing stranger; that is that God should love us at all. But if He does love us, with a love that has no limits, then it would be just like Him to give us the joy of knowing where we may find Him in this world in His very Human Nature—our King, our Friend, our Sacramental God.

"Do you think if I went and knelt before the Taber­nacle in a church where they reserved the Blessed Sacra­ment I should feel that?"

Try it and see.