"MY VOCATION IS LOVE!": SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX

"I thought of the Mystical Body of the Church, but I could not recognise myself in any of its members listed by St Paul - or rather I wanted to recognise myself in all of them. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I realised that if the Church was a body made up of different members, she would not be without the greatest and most essential of them all. I realised that love includes all vocations, that love is all things, and that, because it is eternal, it embraces every time and place. I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood that only love is what drives the members of the Church to act and that, if this love were lacking, neither would the apostles announce the Gospel, nor would the martyrs shed their blood. I clearly recognized and convinced myself that love encompasses all vocations, that love is everything, that it encompasses all times and places, in a word, that love is eternal. 

 Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: 

 O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I have found it...My vocation is Love! Yes, I have found my own place in the Church, and this place is the one you have pointed out to me, my God. In the heart of my Mother, the Church, I will be love; then I will be everything and my desire will be fulfilled.”