Psalm 25:8

I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house; and the place where thy glory dwelleth. (Psalm 25:8 DR)

We have an expression that absence makes the heart grow fonder, by which we mean that being away from something or someone causes us to appreciate it more than when we were near it. In some respects we all have frustrations and such with our families or homes or city or country. Yet it does not take long in a foreign land or among people of a different tongue or culture to develop a longing for home, appropriately called homesickness.

The Psalmist in exile has been deemed a traitor by his people and has a price on his head from the highest level. Some might even suspect blasphemous motivations from him, given that the Lord’s anointed—King Saul—is opposed to him. Being cut off from the tabernacle of the Lord and forced to dwell among pagan idolaters, he might be tempted to forsake his previous life, as he himself has been seemingly forsaken.

Yet this is precisely the occasion of this Psalm where he protests and maintains his innocence before the Lord. He might have every earthly excuse to abandon his faith and his integrity, but he has chosen to have a supernatural vision of things, trusting in God’s eventual vindication of him for the purity of his motives and the uprightness of his heart.

It is this unwavering fixation on the law of the Lord that causes him such distress in a foreign land, for even though it is not of his own doing, he is nevertheless “a stranger with Thee, a sojourner as all my fathers were” (Psalm 38:13 DR). To be cut off from the house of the Lord causes a longing for that very house, which grows in intensity the longer he is absent:

Nothing gave him more trouble in his exile than the being unable to see the tabernacle of the Lord. His mind, deeply inflamed with the love of God, looked upon no spot on the earth more beautiful than that where God was wont to show himself visibly. The tabernacle that contained the ark of the covenant was called, “The house of God,” “the place of the habitation of his glory,” because a bright cloud would frequently descend thereon, to signify God’s presence there; the God “who inhabiteth light inaccessible,” Jam. 1:6, and because there, too, was the oracle from which God gave his responses. (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 25, 8.)

Truly in this case absence from the presence of the Lord made his heart grow fonder, for the one thing he desired was to “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” (Psalm 26:4). Here the Psalmist prophetically looks forward to the establishment of the Church, which is the house of the Lord, for it is where, as he will go on to say, the glory of the Lord dwells. The beauty of this house is thus not due to the house itself, but because the glory of the Lord beautifies it by the Lord’s presence therein. The Church as the mystical Body of Christ is the habitation of this glory, and while the outward splendor of her liturgy and other such things is redolent and reflective of this glory, it is the spiritual adornments which clothe her in this majesty:

The beauty of thy house means not splendour of walls or most expensive tableware, but the most blessed nature of those actions in which the whole Church rejoices: namely, the glad rendering of psalms, the piety of prayers, the most humble devotion of the Christian people. Previously he spoke of the Church as a whole, and now he comes to the saints in whom God's glory is known to dwell. Of them Paul says: “For the temple of God is holy, which you are.” By his mention of the dwelling-place, he was pointing to the secret region of the human heart; and he adds the wonderful phrase, “of thy glory,” for wherever He dwells there is glory, since He makes glorious whatever place He deigns to dwell in, and the majesty of the lodging grows with the merits of the Guest. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 25, 8.)

Cassiodorus notes how the glory of the Lord makes glorious the place in which He dwells, and links this to the members of the Catholic Church who are become unto the temple of God through His dwelling within them. For while the Church as the mystical body of Christ is herself holy, not everyone who enters into the Church is this dwelling place. Yet as the Psalmist in the midst of unbelievers was still confident of his love for the tabernacle of the Lord, so those in the Church need not be discomfited by the presence of evil men:

Fear not then: be thou secure in thy goodness, even in the midst of the evil; and say what thou hearest, (ver. 8.) O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thine house. God’s house is the Church: as yet it contains evil men, but the beauty of God’s house is in the good, is in the holy: this beauty of Thine house have I loved. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 25, Second Exposition, 12.)

In the previous passage St. Augustine noted that to hear the voice of the Lord’s praise and to tell of His wonderous works was to understand that whatever is good in oneself comes from the Lord. The humble in heart do not rely on their own efforts of righteousness but avail themselves of the graces that the Lord is pleased to bestow, cooperating in the goodness that He gives so as to make them good. This is, as he famously says, God crowning the very gifts that He gives unto men, so that they merit what they attain by means of the grace which enables those meritorious acts.

In a similar manner, those in whom the Lord dwells are made into this habitation by means of the grace and goodness given them which makes them good. Their “beauty” is not of themselves, but rather a refulgence of the glory of the Lord which comes to dwell within them, making them glorious by means of His own glory:

What is God's glory? Whereof I spoke a little before, that he even who is made good should not glory in himself, but in the Lord. For all have sinned, and are in need of the glory of God. In whom then the Lord so dwells, that He receiveth glory for His own good things, that they are unwilling to attribute to themselves, and claim as it were for their own, what they have received from Him: these belong to the beauty of God’s house. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 25, Second Exposition, 12.)

This, then, becomes the distinguishing feature of those within the Church in whom the Lord dwells, that in humility they receive their glory from the Lord, rather than taking it upon themselves. Just as the Psalmist did not assert his rights but in humility submitted himself to the Lord’s will, so in the Church we must be humbled before the Lord in humility and purity of heart so that He may lift us up:

But he giveth greater grace. Wherefore he saith: God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Be subject therefore to God, but resist the devil, and he will fly from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners: and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow. Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:6-10 DR)

St. Augustine applies this to the distinguishing of those within the Church:

Nor would Scripture have them distinguished, unless there were some, who have indeed the gift of God, and will not glory in God, but in themselves: they have indeed the gift of God, but they do not belong to the beauty of Go’s house. For they who belong to the beauty of God’s house, in whom God’s glory dwelleth, are themselves the place of the habitation of God’s glory. And in whom doth God’s glory dwell, but in such as so glory, that they glory not in themselves, but in the Lord? (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 25, Second Exposition, 12.)

The perennial conflict in the Church between the wheat and the tares will not abate until the final judgment, but it is not our place to bring that about. For in not leaving place for God’s judgment we take it upon ourselves, an act itself which demonstrates that we glory in ourselves, rather than in the Lord:

And now see, Brethren, see that lover of God, who relieth on God, placed among the evil, entreating God that he be not destroyed with the evil, for that God erreth not in judgment. For, when thou seest men have entered into one place, thou thinkest their merits equal: but God is not deceived, fear not. By the judgment of the wind thou dost discriminate between the chaff and the wheat: thou dost wish the wind to blow for thee, and thou art not the wind, but thou dost wish the wind to blow for thee : and, when with the winnowing fan thou hast shaken out both chaff and wheat, the wind takes away the light, the heavy remains. Thou dost look then for the wind to judge the floor. What? doth God look for another to judge with Him, lest He destroy the good with the evil? (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 25, Second Exposition, 12.)

Like the Psalmist in exile who longs for the house of the Lord even in the midst of great evil, so those who have the glory of the Lord dwelling within need not fear being surrounded by evil and opportunistic men. Rather, they must hope in God’s justice which makes them just, trusting that He will one day bring all to right:

Fear not then: be thou secure in thy goodness, even in the midst of the evil; and say what thou hearest, (ver. 8.) O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thine house. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 25, Second Exposition, 12.)

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For this animation I came across the beautiful Tabernacle of Cherves, which dates from the 13th century. It opens up in the front and also extends to the sides so that the front doors and side panels fan out, which is pretty incredible.

Naturally, I had to do something with this.

I started by isolating and retouching all the various panels, drawn from various photos for the piece. I then brought them into After Effects and recreated, as it were, the mechanism of the tabernacle, or at least the layout of the panels, so that I could use various rotation controls to “open” the tabernacle. This was somewhat challenging and took quite a bit of trial and error as the photos are not all the same size and skew the proportions of the panels.

I eventually got a rough layout of the tabernacle completed and rigged the various panels together so they would move appropriately as needed when the rotations were enabled. The rest was then to make a more or less convincing animation of the opening.

It’s not a perfect rig and much of it is manually animating things to look right, but I think I got the general idea. As it opens a host is revealed inside and light flares out, which I though was an appropriate touch for the subject matter.

Unfortunately, the .gif conversion really mangles this one. Oh well.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: