Psalms 84:1

If therefore you feel the passions of this world, even when you are happy, you understand now that you are in the winepress....If therefore the world smile upon you with happiness, imagine yourself in the winepress, and say, "I found trouble and heaviness, and I did call upon the name of the Lord." He said not, I found trouble, without meaning, of such a kind as was hidden: for some troubles are hidden from some in this world, who think they are happy while they are absent from God. "For as long as we are in the body," he says, "we are absent from the Lord." [2 Corinthians 5:6] If you were absent from your father, you would be unhappy: are you absent from the Lord, and happy? There are then some who think it is well with them. But those who understand, that in whatever abundance of wealth and pleasures, though all things obey their beck, though nothing troublesome creep in, nothing adverse terrify, yet that they are in a bad case as long as they are absent from the Lord; with a most keen eye these have found trouble, and grief, and have called on the name of the Lord. Such is he who sings in this Psalm. Who is he? The Body of Christ. Who is that? You, if you will: all we, if we will: for Christ's Body is one.... "How lovely are Your tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts" [Psalm 84:1]. He was in some tabernacles, that is, in winepresses: but he longed for other tabernacles, where is no pressure: in this he sighed for them, from these, he, as it were, flowed down into them by the channel of longing desire.

How beloved are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts: my soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. Then it is said, "Blessed are they who dwell in your house." See that there are three things: the tabernacles, and the courts, and lastly the house. How beloved are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. What are these tabernacles? Let us look at the Gospel, whether it may offer us some meaning. The Lord speaks, and says: "Make yourselves friends of the unjust mammon, that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." What is it that fails? This, that is, the unjust mammon. May they receive you into the eternal tabernacles. You see, therefore, that the unjust mammon fails in this world. Yet consider that this unjust thing prepares righteousness. In the Hebrew tongue riches are called "mammon": not gold, as some suppose. Of the unjust mammon. There is also a certain saying of the philosopher that is true: "Every rich man is either unjust, or the heir of an unjust man." For this reason the Lord and Savior says that the rich enter with difficulty into the kingdom of heaven. Someone may say: How did Zacchaeus enter into the kingdom of heaven, who was rich? But he gave away his riches, and at once he exchanged his riches for the kingdom of heaven. He did not say, Whoever are rich shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he said, that the rich enter with difficulty into the kingdom of heaven. How beloved are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. Others desire possessions, others the riches of this world, others to hold office in the churches of this world, and to have some glory among men: for me this alone is my desire, to see your eternal tabernacles. Those tabernacles are beloved to me, where there is a gathering of virtues, not of vices. My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. […]

Long ago, when we spoke about the eightieth psalm, we said that the title of the eighth psalm, and of the eightieth, and of the eighty-third psalm — that is, of this one — is inscribed "for the winepresses." So we said that winepresses are like granaries, in which the crops are stored away. So let us see what he says.

How beloved are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. These, then, are the winepresses in which the spiritual grain is to be stored. "Make for yourselves friends out of the mammon of iniquity, that they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." How beloved are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. How beloved are the tabernacles through which a man is carried over from earth to heaven. My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. Happy is that thought which by day and by night desires the tabernacles of the Lord. He who is a sinner, when death comes, does not think about these tabernacles, but about punishments: he does not consider the kingdom of heaven, but dreads the flames of hell. My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. See with what love, or with what longing, the mind of the holy man is wounded for the courts of the Lord. Beautifully has he said: I gaze upon the doors, and what the house is like inside I do not know.

How lovely is the sanctuary in the eyes of all that are truly sanctified! Gracious souls see a wonderful, an inexpressible, beauty in holiness, and in holy work. A tabernacle was a mean habitation, but the disadvantage of external circumstances makes holy ordinances not at all the less amiable; for the beauty of holiness is spiritual, and their glory is within.