St. Therese's "Vocation of Love"

Oh my goodness, a flash back to 2006 on this same day, per my Zenit subscription I use to have:


I am currently reading and truly enjoying the book my friend Esther pointed out recently on St. Therese, called Maurice and Therese, The Story of a Love. It has not been disappointing. And how timely, just this in from Zenit.org; something more reported from Rome regarding St. Therese:


St. Thérèse's "Vocation of Love" Recalled
Missionary Dicastery Receives Her Relics

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 5, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, patroness of the missions, are being venerated in Rome at the start of the missionary month of October.

The relics were received in the chapel of the Propaganda Fide Palace, headquarters of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

"Little Thérèse," as she is known, wrote: "My vocation is love. At the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be love, and in this way I will be everything."

"Love and charity is the soul of the mission," said Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the missionary dicastery, as he recalled St. Thérèse's experience and Benedict XVI's message for the World Mission Sunday, Oct. 22.

The cardinal pointed out the meaning of the mission during a concelebrated Mass in which those who make up the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the four general secretaries of the Pontifical Mission Societies participated, reported the Fides news agency.

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, a Doctor of the Church, was proclaimed patroness of the missions along with patron St. Francis Xavier.

Quality, not quantity

The two patron saints "remind us of the two aspects of mission, contemplation and action," said Cardinal Dias. "We must be contemplatives in action, working while not forgetting prayer and the spiritual aspect."

The Indian cardinal acknowledged: "If I am here, it is because St. Francis baptized my forefathers."

Taking these two figures of the Church as reference, the Vatican prefect reminded those working in the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples that "it is not the quantity of work but the quality which counts and the love with which it is performed."

He exhorted them not to let the bureaucratic aspects dominate, since what is important is to have a heart filled with love, like St. Thérèse.

The Mass over which Cardinal Dias presided was celebrated for the whole missionary world, in particular for all those living in territories entrusted to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. There are 1,082 ecclesiastical circumscriptions directly under the purview of the missionary dicastery, almost 40% of the Church's presence in the world.

The celebration of October as missionary month worldwide reminds those who are baptized that they must collaborate in the universal mission of the Church.