Pilgrimage: The Monument of the Greatest Holy Leaf:

Pilgrimage:  The Monument of the Greatest Holy Leaf:

This love the Guardian had for the Greatest Holy Leaf, who had watched
over him for thirty-five years as far more than a mother, continued to 
be demonstrated for the remainder of his life. When the news of her
death reached him in Switzerland his first act was to plan for her
grave a suitable memorial which he hastened to Italy to order. No one
could possibly call this exquisitely proportioned monument, built of 
shining white Carrara marble, anything but what it appears--a love
temple, the embodiment of Shoghi Effendi's love. He had undoubtedly
conceived its design from buildings of a similar style and, under his
supervision, an artist now incorporated his concept in the monument he
planned to erect on her resting-place. Shoghi Effendi used to compare
the stages in the Administrative Order of the Faith to this monument,
saying the platform of three steps was like the local Assemblies, the 
pillars like the National Assemblies, and the dome that crowned them
and held them together like the Universal House of Justice, which
could not be placed in position until the foundations and pillars were
first firmly erected. After the Greatest Holy Leaf's monument had been 
completed in all its beauty he had a photograph of it sent to many
different Assemblies, as well as to a special list of individuals to
whom he wished to present so tender a memento.
 In every act of his life he associated the Greatest Holy Leaf with 
his services to the Faith. When he entombed the remains of the mother
and brother of Bahiyyih Khanum on Mt. Carmel he cabled:  ". . .
cherished wish Greatest Holy Leaf fulfilled", referring to her often 
expressed desire to be buried near them. On that momentous occasion he
said he rejoiced at the privilege of pledging one thousand pounds as
his contribution to the Bahiyyih Khanum Fund designed to inaugurate
the final drive connected with the completion of the American Temple.
He wrote that this transfer and reburial were events of "capital
institutional significance". He said "the conjunction of the
resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf with those of her brother and 
mother incalculably reinforces the spiritual potencies of that
consecrated Spot" which was "destined to evolve into the focal centre
of those world-shaking, world-embracing, world-directing
Administrative institutions, ordained by Baha'u'llah . . ." 
[the Baha'i World, Vol. 13, p. 107.]