Advent Reflection (Week #1) | What's In Your Tabernacle?
This Advent, I want to make a few changes. Mostly, I want to come to experience Christ more intimately, which is something I've wanted to do and have been trying to do for a long time. Just a few days ago, though, I discovered that I've been searching for God and for intimacy and closeness with Him in the wrong places.
I was meditating in my empty Church after Mass on Sunday, really focusing on giving my heart over to God and allowing Him to transform my heart this Advent season. It was only later that I realized how powerful of a request this is, specifically because of the nature of what Christ desires to do within every human heart.
On my way out, I picked up a book called Jesus In You by Mark Miravalle, and chapter three made it all the more clear what needed to happen in order for me to be transformed.
Mark says in the book that the human heart is also a Tabernacle. As Catholics, we know the Tabernacle to be the place where Christ dwells, where Christ is truly present within every Church in the world.
He says, "[t]he Tabernacle represents that special part of the human soul where God dwells. Yes, I believe that the 'spark of God exists in every human soul."
Mark also shares some famous words from St. Augustine, from his book The Confessions:
"Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved you! Behold, you were within me, while I was outside; it was there that I sought you, and, a deformed creature, rushed headlong upon these things of beauty which you have made. You were with me, but I was not with you..."
For years, I've been looking for God in external things, without ever looking for Him inside of my very being.
Through virtue of my Baptism, God was invited to dwell within me, to come into my heart and to transform me.
But here's the catch: yes, God is present within all of His creation, but He is not present within all of His creation equally.
In order to have a powerful encounter with God within ourselves, who have to continuously invite Him in, invite Him to be more and more present and intimately joined within within the Tabernacle of our hearts and souls.
This also means that we have to make more room within ourselves for God to be present. We can't expect for God to fill us with His presence if we're too full of ourselves.
Since last night, I've been searching my Tabernacle to see what I've placed there. This Advent, I want to start removing things that have no place there to allow God to be more fully present within me.
I've noticed that I hold comfort very close to my heart, comfort which can at times leave me in a drunken state and make room for laziness and sloth in my life.
I also worry a lot about what people think of me, and I worry about people seeing what a mess I am and thinking ill of me for it.
Even with my same-sex desires, I can get so caught up in wanting to fulfill those desires, and worrying that they will cause me pain all my life.
Retreating to this place with God within me over these past few days, I've realized just how surface level those desires really are, how they could never give me what I'm truly searching for.
I desire a much deeper level of intimacy, a real and authentic love that is only possible with God.
I want to pose this question to you just as it was posed to me in this book: What's in your tabernacle? How can you make more room for Christ to make your heart a home this Advent season?
I would go there today. Go inside of yourself to that sacred space where God is so intimately joined with you. See what's there that may be cluttering that space, and start off every day by taking some things away that don't need to be there.
I pray that by Christmas this year, all of us will come to know Christ within ourselves, and allow Him to transform us from the inside out.
For now, let us be patient and keep watch until the time comes to celebrate the Savior's birth.