Holy See

“ May the kingdom of God within you, — with you alway, — reascending, bear you outward, upward, heavenward. May the sweet song of silver-throated singers, making melody more real, and the organ's voice, as the sound of many waters, and the Word spoken in this sacred temple dedicated to the ever-present God — mingle with the joy of angels and rehearse your hearts' holy intents. May all whose means, energies, and prayers helped erect The Mother Church, find within it home, and heaven. ”

“ Our faith is concentrated in the Son of God, and through him to the Father; and the Holy Ghost is their minister to bring truths to our remembrance, to reveal new truths to us, and teach, guide, and direct the course of every mind, until we become perfected and prepared to go home, where we can see and converse with our Father in heaven. ”

“ The Communion of Saints." The pictures of the saints of the Old and the New Testament, of the angels who worship Christ our Saviour, and of the men blessed by Him when on earth, which shine for us in the windows, may help to give it reality in our thought. The four main walls of the church, which are supposed to represent the four Evangelists, and the pillars, "which, as the chief supports of the fabric, are said to represent the Apostles, prophets, and martyrs," may remind us also of the holy and glorious fellowship into which we have been brought. ”

“ O Almighty God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. ”

“ When this wonderful truth is made known, we are no longer astonished that God should assure us, by so many precious promises, that he will hear and answer our prayers. We are called the temples of the Holy Ghost. If the Holy Ghost dwell in us, to guide and direct us in all our ways, will he forsake us in so important a matter as prayer? O, then, what a solemn place is the Christian's closet, or the house of prayer! ”

“ His prayer was made up, indeed, by quotations from the Old Testament, and he used altogether the phraseology of the Scriptures. He prayed for the church in the wilderness, "that it might be bright as the sun, fair as the moon, beautiful as Tirzah, and terrible as an army with banners;" "that our own exertions to serve the church and our strivings after the Holy Spirit might not be like arrows in the air, traces in the sea, oil upon the polished marble, and water spilt upon the ground." ”

“ And even all things that Jesus Christ knew concerning the interest, salvation, and endless felicity and glory of the church—and the misery and final undoing of such as obey not God, the Holy Ghost would communicate in visions, dreams, and revelations. Thus the earth would be filled with knowledge, and Christ would again return here with all the departed saints, and literally bring down a celestial city of splendid mansions—even the New Jerusalem—and God would once more dwell with men in peace. ”

“ And when at length earnest prayer has brought calm and holy joy to your soul, you may rise and look up into the dome, rising four hundred feet above you, with mosaics of evangelists, and prophets, and angels, archangels, and all the grades of the celestial host, until in the summit, amid a blaze of light, the "Ancient of Days" looks down from heaven, in power and majesty, blessing the worshippers of earth, and bending forward to receive the prayers of all who come to this holy and consecrated temple to pour forth their supplications and entreat his mercy. ”

“ The people united their prayers night and day with the prayers of the Holy Bishop, while the Miraculous Intelligence spread rapidly, and carried by the winds, the clouds and the light, it crossed the seas and mountains to fill all western Christendom with happiness and wonder. ”

“ In the true sense, Jesus Christ is the Temple. In Him God dwelt; in Him, man meets God; in Him was the place of revelation; in Him the place of sacrifice. 'In this place is one greater than the Temple,' and the abiding of Jehovah above the mercy-seat was but a material symbol, shadowing and foretelling the true indwelling of all the fulness of the Godhead bodily in that true Tabernacle which the Lord hath pitched and not man. ”

“ A line of distinction is drawn between God’s servants and those rejecters of the Saviour, from the 13th to the 16th verse. The Holy Ghost then leads the mind of the Prophet to the future glory of the Church in the thousand years reign—For behold I create new heavens and a new earth, which will be a state of joy and comfort. This new heavens and earth must refer, literally, to the personal reign of Christ on earth; for the apostle Peter says (it is written) and to this passage he must refer. ”

“ But thus the former temple doth denote the present church; the Holy of Holies, heaven; the high priest, Christ; the blood, His Passion; the coals, His love; the thurible. His flesh; the burning incense, prayers of sweet savour; the altar, the hosts of heaven; the ark, Christ in His humanity; the mercy-seat, God the Father; the two cherubims, the twain Testaments, the which do look towards each other because the two do agree; the vestments which be washed, mankind. ”

“ Our gathering together, the kind of Gospel that is preached, the disposition and feeling to build Temples, a strong impression that seems to rest upon all the people, is something in itself very remarkable.
Now in relation to our gathering, who is there anywhere else in the world that feel as the Latter-day Saints do? You do not find it anywhere, and nothing but the Spirit of God operating upon the minds of the people could have induced them to gather together as they have done. This spirit was imparted, as the Holy Ghost is, by the laying on of hands, through the medium of the Priesthood. ”

“ The cloud was the symbol of the Divine Presence, which had hung over the Tabernacle, which had sat between the cherubim, which had wrapped the shepherds and the angels on the hillside, which had come down in its brightness on the Mount of Transfiguration, and which now, as the symbol of the Divine Presence, received the ascending Lord, in token to the men that stood gazing up into heaven, that He had passed to the right hand of the Majesty on high. ”

“ The Church is called God’s holy Mountain—typified by Mount Sion, firmly settled in the eternal love, and everlasting purposes of Grace. Conspicuous and useful in the world, and which, as a great Mountain, shall fill the whole earth in the latter day. They are called a holy people; the Lord Jesus Christ is their holiness before God, Ye are compleat in him, who of God is made unto us Sanctification. Secondly, All their holiness is received from him, as the High Priest of their profession ”

“ Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? It may be understood of the church of Corinth collectively, or of every single believer among them; Christian churches are temples of God. He dwells among them by his Holy Spirit. They are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, Eph. ”

“ All the light that ministers communicate to mankind, or to the members of the church, is derived from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, as the light of the planets is from the natural sun. The pastors of the church have neither light nor grace of themselves: they receive all from the “Father of lights,” in whose light only they can see light; and it pleased him that in Christ should “all fulness dwell.” Both ministers and people must be enlightened with emanations from him, or remain in darkness. ”

“ At the entrance the breath as if of the Spirit of eternity blows upon us, and a holy auroral splendor, like the brightness of the Divinity, fills the consecrated dome.
“In the centre, as the central point of all being and of all history, stands the cross, on which the infinite Spirit has sacrificed himself from his infinite benevolence towards man. ”

“ The whole church is a temple of art, with its sculptured altar, its bronze tabernacle, its rare paintings, its beautiful pillars of differently-colored marbles, and its rich windows of stained glass. Nothing could be more serene and calm than the atmosphere of this glorious church. Amid the sacred silence, the struggling light, with the grandest symbols of religion on every side, you feel lifted for a moment out of your own mean imprisonments into a very heaven of art and piety. ”

“ Do we not feel, when looking upon Christ, as if the secret of His whole life was the stretching out imploring and welcoming hands to men, and praying them to grasp His hands, and be saved? But, oh, brethren! the fact that towers above all others, which explains the whole procedure of divinity, and is the keystone of the whole arch of revelation; the fact which reveals in one triple beam of light, God, man, and sin in the clearest illumination, is the Cross of Jesus Christ. ”

“ The reverent worshippers assemble morning and evening, in all the pride of their paint and feathers, but there is no hideous idol inside; nay! they worship the invisible One, whom they can see even with closely shut eyes. To watch the men and women, with erect bearing, and each walking in the other's footsteps, enter the church, is a sight well worth the seeing. ”

“ The Holy Place in man's temple is the sacred region of the heavenly life, the plane we call Spirit. The Outer Court is the region of the Natural Mind, into which all may come. Jesus referred to his body as the real Temple of God, superseding the temple at Jerusalem. Paul says that our bodies are also temples of God, and having this view of man's soul as the receptacle of life from God, its tabernacle, we can perceive just how it is true.
How shall we think of the receptacle of life from God, the soul-form, which, with the soul's life from God, is the real man? ”

“ And they shall have the benefit of these holy convocations frequently, every new moon and every sabbath, not, as formerly, at the three annual feasts only. There is no necessity of one certain place, as the temple was of old. Christ is our temple, in whom by faith all believers meet, and now that the church is so far extended it is impossible that all should meet at one place ”

“ Let us always ask God when present at the holy Mass for a lively faith in His Real Presence, an ardent love for Him in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, and the grace to imitate His humility, His purity, His meekness, obedience, patience, and charity here, and enjoy His presence forever hereafter. ”

“ The rings on the rope are perseverance and the crown of reward. The glazed windows of the church be the Holy Scriptures, which do ward off the wind and the rain, that is, do repel all hurtful things; and when they do transmit the brightness of the True Sun by day into the church, they do give light to them that be therein. ”

“ I found the Christian alone,—seated, under the [pg 245] shade of one of his trees, at a small table, with a volume unrolled before him, while a beautiful antelope lay sleeping at his feet. Struck forcibly by the contrast which he presented to those haughty priests, whom I had seen surrounded by the pomp and gorgeousness of temples, “Is this, then,” thought I, “the faith, before which the world trembles—its temple the desert, its treasury a book, and its High Priest the solitary dweller of the rock!” ”

“ How like he is to your Lord! Is he not, like your Christ, a Saviour, and risen from the dead? The Temple or the Church—both are the sanctuaries of the Deity. By the ivy-wreathed altar of the weeping goddess, at the foot of the tall cypresses which cast their mysterious shadows on the snowy whiteness of the marble steps on which lies the bier of the god, you will feel the sacred awe which falls upon every pure soul when it is conscious of the presence of the Deity—call Him what you will. ”

“ The unseen, unheard, inconceivable joys can be faintly expressed by the reproduction in one of the three most glorious revelations of Scripture—The Garden of Eden, the Holy Land with its Temple, the Church of Christ ”

“ That at confirmation there was a larger infusion of the Holy Spirit than at baptism—what it was to be witnesses to God—witnesses by our whole life and conversation. These two addresses much pleased me, both as to manner and matter.
We had the privilege of saying our English office in their chapel, where the single lamp marks the presence of the Holy Sacrament. How great a blessing is this, that the Lord of the Temple dwells bodily in it—how great a realising of the Incarnation. ”

“ The solemn church, lighted only by the twilight rays, and the tapers upon the high altar,—the veiled forms of the pious sisterhood and their young pupils in the grated sanctuary,—the clouding of the fragrant incense,—the tinkling of that silvery bell and of the chains of the swinging censer,—those ancient and dignified rites,—and over all, those clear, angelic voices praying and praising, in litany and hymn—all combine to make up a worship, one moment of which would seem enough to wipe away the memory of a lifetime of folly, and disappointment, and sorrow. ”

“ Catholics believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is alone the great Centre of the Christian religion, the Fountain of all grace, virtue, and merit as in the natural world (if the comparison may be allowed) , the sun is the centre and enlivening created source of light, heat, and growth. ”

“ Jesus Christ, the Light of the world—the Sun of Justice, who had risen in the East with healing in his beams—had gone down to the grave, had closed His earthly career, and the world henceforth, so long illuminated by the presence of the bright Sun of truth and grace, would have no longer any other light to shine upon it except the reflected light of the Catholic Church. ”