NOTES for Heb 9:1-10

Describing in some detail the arrangement of the tabernacle, well known to his contemporaries from the text of Exodus, the author of the letter at the same time focuses his readers' attention on the fact that the very form of Yahwist worship implied a certain incompleteness. It hinted at something greater than what it could give a person in terms of purification and sanctification. The author describes the tabernacle as an earthly sanctuary connected with that "first covenant" which joined the people to God at Sinai (vv. 1-5). This sanctuary had its role: it was the place of God's presence, which purified and sanctified the people (vv. 6-7). But the very fact that such a sanctuary existed showed that neither complete purification nor complete sanctification was possible in those times, when many centuries still remained before the coming of the Messiah (vv. 8-10).

Here we face a problem over which Paul had already reflected a great deal: spiritual life is not the sphere where quantity turns into quality by itself. Increasing the number of religious duties a person performs does not bring the performer closer to the ideal spiritual state of a living Torah, even if the number of those duties tends toward infinity. The new spiritual quality is, in principle, irreducible to the quantity of "spiritual" deeds a person performs. The same is true of sanctification or purification: even increasing the number of purification rituals to infinity will not free the one being purified from the power of sin, just as repeated sanctification over and over again will not fully transform the human nature of the one being sanctified. Here too, quantity does not become quality by itself. A special, purposeful spiritual effort is needed for such a transition to become reality, and for a person truly to have the possibility of sharing in the life of the Kingdom. Before the Messiah's coming, the main task of spiritual life remained the maintenance of at least a relative spiritual balance, one that would allow those seeking a righteous life at least not to sink into sin and not to fall completely under the power of the laws of an untransformed world.

Of course, even this task was far from easy to solve, but it was nevertheless solved, so that the world did not collapse into the abyss before the coming of the Messiah. Only now has it become possible to speak of taking the next step, after which, in the light of the Kingdom that has been revealed, the former efforts and former forms will no longer be needed.

In today's apostolic reading, the apostle Paul recalls the tabernacle of the first, Sinai covenant and the ark of the covenant. From deep antiquity, the "Holy of Holies" of that first tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, and its liturgical vessels came to be perceived, along with their own meaning, as a prototype of the Most Pure Virgin, a prophecy about Her. And this prototype entered the deepest consciousness and theology of the Church. We call the Mother of God the Tabernacle that contained the Uncontainable God and the ark of the holiness of the New Covenant. We say that, like the golden vessel with manna, She contained within Herself the Bread of life.

It is significant that the tabernacle, the "Holy of Holies," and the ark of the covenant were in the Old Testament the greatest gift of God, a tangible sign of His mercy toward His people. Therefore the greatest veneration from all people was fitting for them. And as we read these words today from the Letter to the Hebrews, we cannot help thinking that such a gift of the Almighty's mercy for us today is His Most Pure Mother herself. And venerating Her as the holy place of the Covenant is a wonderful source of joy for us, because in Her, as in the tabernacle of the Covenant, we meet God.

Paul mentions the custom according to which the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies only once a year, so that at all other times it remained inaccessible. In this inaccessibility the author sees the incompleteness of the union-covenant connected with Moses. Indeed, the world can become the Kingdom only if the chief sanctuary, the place of God's presence, is open to the world, open to the creation that must be transfigured under the action of this presence.

But the point is that in the spiritual state presupposed by the Mosaic covenant, it could not be open. The sanctuary could open only if nothing hindered the sanctification of creation, if it were free from the power of the evil in which the world lies after the fall. But the Mosaic covenant was not enough for such liberation; otherwise there would have been no need for the Messiah to come.

Moreover, in a certain sense it turned out that the earthly sanctuary, perceived as established once and for all and in itself sufficient for full spiritual life, could separate seekers and the whole people as a whole from the Throne of glory, which is the only true altar, the spiritual prototype of all earthly altars. Here the same effect was present that Paul wrote about more than once in his letters: the absolutizing of the Torah, even the inner Torah, could close to a person the path to which that same Torah pointed.

The Torah is like a spiritual compass that helps one not stray from the path, but a compass is needed precisely in order to walk the path, not in order to contemplate its needle and make such contemplation one's chief, or even only, spiritual exercise. The same thing could happen, and often did happen, with the Yahwistic cult: the external forms of the earthly sanctuary became values in themselves, and that for which the sanctuary was created receded into the background. In that case the external forms could obscure not only the essence of what happened in the earthly sanctuary, but also the Throne of which that sanctuary was the prototype.