The living church’s tabernacle and the royal priesthood

Now let us return to this tabernacle of the church of the living God. The vessels of the holy things should be borne on the shoulders of rational people, not mute beasts; the harder loads are laid on the mute. Merari receives four wagons, Gershon two: more serve the cruder works as if animals; few approach the rational tasks. To the mystic things open only to priests neither the natural man nor the merely learned who have not yet risen to priestly grace may come — they see through a mirror, in a riddle, carry what is veiled on their shoulders, and know more by deed than by unveiled knowledge. Let us be made worthy of the priestly order, lest heavy burdens be laid on us as on the irrational. We are a royal priesthood; let us match received grace with the merits of life, that when we depart we may be taken among God’s priests, with unveiled face behold the Lord’s glory, and enter the holy land through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.