Whenever I attend Mass I gaze upon the tabernacle. I prefer to attend the traditional Latin Mass because the focal point IS the tabernacle with the priest leading us by facing the tabernacle himself.
Actually, the focus of the Mass is not on the tabernacle (there’s no requirement to have a tabernacle at all), and it is not intended that the priest should be facing it.
To
quote myself in a previous post about why it was exactly this sort of mistake that spurred reformers to move tabernacles elsewhere:
I think part of the motivation was to correct the misconceptions that I have personally seen several people on these forums strenuously insist on: namely, that the tabernacle must be behind the altar and the priest must face it because the Mass is supposed to be oriented toward the worship of Christ in the tabernacle (the priest is “speaking to the Lord who is present right there,” etc.); that the priest must not turn around to face the people because he would commit the grave insult of showing his back to the tabernacle; and similar disordered notions with absolutely no basis in traditional theology or praxis.
Just like the Precious Blood used to be withheld to correct people’s mistake that it was necessary to receive under both kinds, it is not altogether unreasonable (in the sense you occasionally hear that “They moved the tabernacle because they hate Jesus and the Real Presence!”) to correct the error of thinking that the tabernacle is in any way important to the Mass. The Mass lacks absolutely nothing when it is celebrated in the absence of a tabernacle (e.g., in a side chapel, crypt chapel, school chapel, hospital chapel, the high altar of St. Peter’s, or any other place where the Sacrament is not habitually reserved), though to hear the way some people talk about it you’d think the tabernacle was the linchpin element. (The very idea of a centrally-located, pigeonhole-type tabernacle is actually a comparatively late, most baroque, innovation.)
There is also the fact that in larger churches – cathedrals, places of pilgrimage, and the like – it has always been standard to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in a separate chapel so that adoration can take place without the distractions of the main nave, and other needful things can take place in the nave without offense to the Blessed Sacrament. This idea definitely got carried a bit too far in modern church constructions.
It’s unfortunate that this confusion over the alleged centrality of the tabernacle continues to exist. It was never seen as central during the many, many centuries in which the Sacrament either wasn’t reserved, or wasn’t reserved in a tabernacle. It was never seen as central in all the great Romanesque basilicas or Gothic cathedrals where the tabernacle wasn’t in the nave at all, and when tabernacles were more commonly established as pigeonholes behind the main altar, this was largely because it was the most convenient location from the priest’s standpoint. The tabernacle is simply of no relevance to Mass – and, as comments here often show, can actually serve as a distraction from the ultimate Sacrifice (you know, the Church’s supreme act of worship?) which takes place on the altar.
I think having a tabernacle front and center in a smaller church is excellent, as it allows everyone to pray before it and reminds people
outside of Mass that the Blessed Sacrament is still at the focus of a parish’s life. But the fetishizing of it – incorrect historical and theological views of its importance, etc – if anything, just reinforces the arguments for moving it, much like mistaken conceptions about the need to receive under both Species bolstered the Church’s decision to permanently withhold the Chalice.
