From the “Story of a Soul” of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, virgin
(Manuscript B, 3v°)
These aspirations becoming a veritable martyrdom, one day I opened the epistles of Saint Paul, in order to seek some remedy for my torment in my turn. Chapters XII and XIII of the first epistle to the Corinthians fell under my eyes. I read there that not all can be apostles, prophets and doctors at the same time, that the Church is composed of different members, and that the eye cannot be the hand at the same time.
The answer was clear, but did not fulfill my wishes and did not give me peace. Without becoming discouraged, I continued my reading and this counsel relieved me: “Strive eagerly for the more perfect gifts; but I will show you a still more excellent way.”
And the Apostle explains how all the most perfect gifts are nothing without Love, that Charity is the most excellent way to go surely to God. At last I had found rest!
Considering the mystical body of the holy Church, I had not recognized myself in any of the members described by Saint Paul, or rather I wanted to recognize myself in all of them.
Charity gave me the key to my vocation.
I understood that, if the Church had a body composed of different members, the most necessary, the noblest of all the organs was not lacking to her;
I understood that she had a heart, and that this heart was burning with love;
I understood that love alone made her members act, that, if love were to be extinguished, the apostles would no longer proclaim the Gospel, the martyrs would refuse to shed their blood.
I understood that love contained all vocations, that love was everything, that it embraced all times and all places, because it 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 place within the Church, and this place, O my God, it is you who have given it to me: in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be love!… Thus I shall be everything; thus my dream will be fulfilled!!!”
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Translated by “Friends of Lazarus”
