“[The tabernacle] takes the place previously occupied by the now disappeared ‘Ark of the Covenant’. In fact, the tabernacle is the complete fulfillment of what the Ark of the Covenant represented. It is the place of the ‘Holy of Holies’. It is the tent of God, his throne. Here he is among us. His presence (Shekinah) really does now dwell among us—in the humblest parish church no less than in the grandest cathedral” (The Spirit of the Liturgy, 89).In the consecrated species [Jesus] is there and remains there. When a man experiences this with every fiber of his heart and mind and senses, the consequence is inescapable: ‘We must make a proper place for this Presence.’”
Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 89