A LINK TO ETERNITY

 

When I wrote a post recently about the coming of Elijah to the Kirtland Temple to restore the priesthood sealing power,  I received a very direct 3 word comment from an unbeliever: “It never happened.”

I get these kinds of comments from time to time from anti-Mormon activists. I have learnt not to try to prove anything to them because they usually come into LDS Facebook Groups to cause contention and not to be converted. When I was a missionary, we missionaries were told not to ‘Bible bash’ when people try to oppose our beliefs, but to only bear our testimony.

I never replied to this comment I received but I have been thinking about it ever since. How would I bear testimony of the spirit of Elijah to someone who is not a Church member? It’s a witness of the spirit and helping others to understand that and believe it is virtually impossible. Even Elder Boyd K. Packer admitted to that (refer to "The Candle of the Lord", Ensign Jan 1983, 51-52)

It has always amazed me that the Spirit of Elijah courses throughout the world prompting people to seek out their ancestors and find their roots yet nobody really knows why. The world at large knows very little of proxy work for the dead. And some who know think it is un-ethical to be baptising people ‘into our religion’ without their consent. In this day and age of human rights, it even becomes problematic to talk about this subject.

I am amazed at the boldness by which Elder LeGrand Richards testified of Elijah’s return:

 "The story of Elijah's return can be found in D&C 110.  Obviously, there is no need to wait for him any longer.  This became the subject of conversation between Elder LeGrand Richards and the Mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek.  Elder Richards had just dedicated the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden [in year 1979] on the Mount of Olives.  After the ceremony, the two conversed as they ate their lunch:

Elder Richards said:  "Mayor, I want to tell you something".

"What's that?" asked the Mayor.

Looking Mayor Kollek directly in the eye, the apostle said:

"Ten years ago I was here in Jerusalem and one day I went into three synagogues and hanging up on the wall in one of them was a large armchair.  I asked the rabbi what it was there for (I knew but I wanted him to tell me, which he did).  He said that it was so that if Elijah comes 'we can lower the chair and let him sit in it'. 

“Now Mayor, I want to tell you something and what I tell you is the truth.  Elijah has already been.  On the third day of April 1836 he appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple".

The Mayor said:

"I guess I better tell them to take that chair down."

- (LeGrand Richards, Beloved Apostle, p.301)

Maybe boldness is what we all need. I am certain, however,  that Elder Richards would have told the Mayor all about the Church prior to this conversation. I am certain that his conviction of its truthfulness was something that the Mayor could not oppose, hence the respect for the information he was given. If only all people would be so respectful of our beliefs…..

I guess you cannot bear witness of Elijah’s return without bearing your testimony about the whole restoration of Christ’s Church. You cannot have a testimony of family history if you don’t have a testimony of Joseph Smith and the priesthood that was given him; of the scriptures that speak of Elijah’s return; of temples and proxy baptisms; of living prophets that build those temples; of resurrection and eternity, that being the whole purpose for Elijah’s sealing power, and of continuation of families beyond this life.

And most of all, Christ’s power of redemption and His work and His glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39). We need to know it all and have an iron clad testimony of it all.

Our testimony needs to be a light to the world and our link to eternity…..like our parents and their parents and their parents and their parents.....You know what I mean.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

TURNING OF THE HEARTS PART 2

 

The power of the Spirit of Elijah amazes me. It bridges time and space and unites families in miraculous ways. And in the process, it heals and changes us forever. I am a witness to this process.

It started with my father who gave me a priceless gift. He gave me the Gospel.

When he was just a youth growing up in a poor peasant household in the socialist republic of Croatia, my father rejected the expected role of the oldest son to remain on family land to inherit it along with the care of his parents.

He chose instead a trade at the expense of his father's displeasure and rejection....a trade which enabled him later to move our family to the city life when I was 3 years old. This heroic move led to another even a more heroic one which took our family to a land of more opportunity, Australia. I was 14 years old when we left our homeland.

We hailed from a strong Catholic community. I attended our local Church regularly but my parents and my sisters were not so committed. My father had never expressed any deep spiritual convictions and I had never seen him at Church.

Unbeknownst to him, my father had brought me to a country, by spiritual design, where I could receive the greatest opportunity of all: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was 17 when I approached my parents with my desire to join the Church.

My father does not show emotion but this news outraged and scared him. We were immigrants of 3 years in a strange country and my father’s fear was that I was joining a polygamous cult. He gave me an ultimatum. If I insisted on joining the Church, I had to leave home.

I was driven. The spirit of conversion burned inside me. I left home and was cut off from my family. It was the most devastating event of my then young life which ripped the fabric of my family for many years.

My sister stepped in and reconciled me with my parents a year later. All seemed well but our rift was never addressed properly and the reconciliation was too little too late. My father had become disillusioned with Australia and took my mother back to Croatia.

We corresponded over the years and I visited just once, after my mission. Whilst there I showed great interest in my Croatian roots and with my father’s help I gathered a lot of our family history, which pleased him greatly. So you see he was my accomplice in the temple work I did for my family.

I didn’t see my parents for 20 years before they passed away. I had their temple work done…….except for one ordinance. I was never sealed to them. For some reason, I didn’t feel the spiritual connection with them and could not see my father as someone who would accept the Gospel. The temple work I did for them was perfunctory. I did it out of duty.

And then ‘the turning of my heart happened’….. 15 years later. Suddenly I started thinking about my father. I was his favourite child and the magnitude of the pain I caused him when I left home bore heavily on me. I cried day after day….and I would plead in my prayers that he be told how sorry I am that I hurt him. I could not understand why after all these years I was sorrowing over that experience of my young life.

Then one day I understood, I was not sealed to my parents. The thought came to me that all that pain was wasted for something I believed in and sacrificed for that would never be ours. It was as if my father was speaking to me. I felt I had dishonoured my parents and basically rejected them and I felt enormous guilt. I made a commitment to get the sealing done. As I did so, the sorrowing left and I was at peace. I knew I had been forgiven.

Sometimes in ‘turning our hearts to our fathers’, some resolutions need to happen and most often than not they involve some form of forgiveness. Some of us hail from dysfunctional families, some from abuse, some from abandonment but all come from flawed humanity.

If something is holding you back from the sealing ordinances, know that forgiveness is the key. It will free and change you and it will replace all the grief that is in your heart with unearthly love.

We cannot be saved without our dead. Elijah was not the only one to appear at the Kirtland Temple. The Saviour came too, in acceptance of it to impress upon us this truth. To Him our salvation is everything because this is His work and His glory.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Lord's Appearance to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple by Theodore S. Gorka)

THE PROMISES

 

I often see a close and loving family outside the Church and wonder how they will feel after this life, unconnected with no ties throughout eternity. Some of them will never join the Church in this life.

Herein is the mercy of our God….

When angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith on 21 September 1823, he told him of an important part of the restoration that will take place 13 years later. He told Joseph that the sealing power of the Priesthood will be restored to the earth by the hand of Elijah the prophet who will ‘plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers’ (D&C 2:2)

This sealing power comes in two parts. The first part is the planting into our hearts the promises made to the fathers: “Who are the fathers? They are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom the promises were made. What are the promises? They are the promises of a continuation of the family unit in eternity” (Bruce R. McConkie, The Millenial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man [1982], 267l; see also D&C 27:10; Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual commentary for D&C 2:2).

The second part is the turning of our hearts to our own ancient fathers. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve said that not only has God made these promises to the ancient patriarchs but that we “undoubtedly made them to our own lineal fathers and mothers, those who came to earth before the gospel was restored but whom we promised to provide its saving ordinances” (Christ and the New Covenant 1977, p. 297)

So it is through this sealing power and the saving ordinances we provide for our kindred dead that we inherit the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant. If not, the creation of this earth would be utterly wasted “as a sealed, united, celestially saved family of God is the ultimate purpose of mortality”. (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, p 297-98)

But the earth’s purpose will not be 'utterly wasted' at the Saviour's coming (D&C 2:3) because the sealing power of the priesthood was restored to the earth by Elijah in the Kirtland Temple in 1836 through Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

The spirit of Elijah whispers to Church members and non-members alike in the world today who are desperately seeking their roots. Even the ones who don’t know why, will one day give thanks to the God of this universe who made the family ties eternal and preserved the love that binds us together, now and forever…..

 

Your life has come and gone

But your footprints remain

And your blood courses through my veins.

Because of God’s eternal grace

We will once again embrace.

I weep not that we are now apart,

For I carry you with me,

I carry you in my heart.

 

-  CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Elijah Appearing in the Kirtland Temple by Dan Lewis)