Andrea Pozzo has given a most beautiful expression, in a painting on the ceiling of Sant'Ignazio in Rome, to the unity of the pilgrim Church and the Church of heaven. On the ceiling of the central nave, a great Baroque architecture opens out onto an infinite heaven, St. Ignatius ascends on clouds to the Holy Trinity. Other saints of the Society of Jesus join him; on all sides, angels ascend and descend, creating the link here to the allegorical representations of the four continents, which strive toward this heavenly fellowship and make their way toward it. While the Church of heaven descends, the pigrim Church ascends to her native land; or rather, both make their way to meet one another, "grow together to form the one Church" to which all her members belong "to various extents and in various ways" whether they are pilgrims on earth or "have departed from this life and are being purified or are already glorified in the vision of God."

Christoph Schonborn, From Death to Life: The Christian Journey (Ignatius Press, 1995, 66-67).