It is impossible for any man to give a satisfactory answer to the question ‘What is God's purpose for the Church?’ We can only turn with expectation to Holy Scripture and to the other vehicles of divine revelation. The letter to the Ephesians declares the purpose of God as follows: ‘He destined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ, as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. … To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places’ (Eph 1.5, 9; 3.8–10).