What is the Church’s role in the hearts of believers?
Q541 · The Eminence of the Church
According to a Syrian author, the role played by the Church, here on earth, is to inflame our hearts with longing to the heavenly Church: “It is befitting for us not to despise the seen church, which begets every one of us as children. Let us also not despise the church of the heart, which strengthens those who are sick. We must long to the higher (heavenly) church which perfects all the saints.”1096
1091 St. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on The Song of Songs , ed., Brian E. Daley S.J. and John T. Fitzgerald, trans., Richard A. Norris Jr. (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012) 5: pp. 175–177.
1092 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Philadelphians 9 (LCL 24:293).
1093 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans 7 (LCL 24:279).
1094 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians 13 (LCL 24:233).
1095 Origen, Against Celsus 3.29 (ANF 4:476).
1096 Book of Steps 1.3.