. One single church in heaven and earth.

The unity of the wandering church and the church in heaven.
He expressed most beautifully the unity of the wandering Church and the heavenly Church. Andrea Pozzo, in one of his murals in the church
S. Ignazio in Rome. On the ceiling of the central nave, the monumental Baroque architecture gives way to an infinite sky. On a cloud, St. Ignatius ascends to the Holy Trinity. He is joined by several other saints of the Society of Jesus; at the sides, they are accompanied by ascending and descending angels, forming a union of the allegorically depicted four continents that seek this heavenly communion and move towards them.
As the Church of Heaven descends, the Church ascends, journeying towards its heavenly homeland; no, the two are drawing closer together, “merging into one church,” into a church “to which all, though in different degrees and different ways, belong” (LG 49), whether they wander on earth or “already removed from this world, they are being purified,” not being glorified in belonging to God (LG 49). In the church of S. Ignazio, there is also the tomb of St. Robert Bellarmine, dedicated in one of the volumes of his work, “De controversies christianae fidei,” to the three stages of the Church: the Church militant, the Church in a state of purification, and the Church triumphant.1 It has often been blamed the ecclesiology of the Counter-Reformation for overemphasizing the social and institutional aspect of the Church Militant while setting aside its eschatological character. The Council sought to correct this situation, replacing2 the term “Church Militant” with the word “Church Wandering,” thus showing that the Church is wandering towards her fullness and perfection “in heavenly glory” (LG 48); perspective is redacted in Chapter VII of the document “Lumen Gentium.
The Council held that the question of the veneration of the saints should be placed in a broader theological context, namely the eschatological character of the Church. Msgr. G. Philips comments on the result of this work as follows: “This idea leads us, unintentionally, to a happy enrichment of the constitution of the Church. The extension enables us to conceive of the Church, including its fulfillment in perfection. Still, it also shows us the meaning of our journey forward, precisely the sense of hope. Only now can we fully understand chapter 2 about the wandering people of God.
The second and seventh chapters of Lumen Gentium correspond to each other and thus contribute to establishing a balance. Ted, we can consider where we are coming from, what has already taken place, where we are going, and what the future holds. “4 Although this view somewhat corrects the not-so-eschatological notion of the “Church Militant” in post-Tridentine Council theology, “it remains true that the decision for ‘the people of God’ as the fundamental and default concept associated with today’s two-church arrangement, the earthly Church, of which we are members, and the heavenly Church, whose members are the elect who have already succeeded in reaching ‘homeland,’ has led to a certain narrowing of the patristic horizon”.5 Admittedly, care must be taken not to make these contrasts too not to exaggerate and exacerbate them, six, but it is worth pointing them out.