Meditating on the mystical Body of Holy Church, I could not recognise myself among any of its members as described by St. Paul, or was it not rather that I wished to recognise myself in all?  Charity provided me with the key to my vocation.  I understood that since the Church is a body composed of different members, the noblest and most important of all the organs would not be wanting.  I knew that the Church has a heart, that this heart burns with love, and that it is love alone which gives life to its members.  I knew that if this love were extinguished, the Apostles would no longer preach the Gospel, and the Martyrs would refuse to shed their blood.  I understood that love embraces all vocations, that it is all things, and that it reaches out through all the ages, and to the uttermost limits of the earth, because it is eternal.

Then, beside myself with joy, I cried out:  “O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation.  My vocation is love!  Yes, I have found my place in the bosom of the Church, and this place, O my God, Thou hast Thyself given to me:  in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be LOVE! . . .  Thus I shall be all things:  thus will my dream be realised. . . .”

Why do I say I am beside myself with joy?  This does not convey my thought.  Rather is it peace which has become my portion—­the calm peace of the sailor when he catches sight of the beacon which lights him to port.  O luminous Beacon of Love!  I know how to come even unto Thee, I have found the means of borrowing Thy Fires.

I am but a weak and helpless child, yet it is my very weakness which makes me dare to offer myself, O Jesus, as victim to Thy Love.

In olden days pure and spotless holocausts alone were acceptable to the Omnipotent God.  Nor could His Justice be appeased, save by the most perfect sacrifices.  But the law of fear has given place to the law of love, and Love has chosen me, a weak and imperfect creature, as its victim.  Is not such a choice worthy of God’s Love?  Yea, for in order that Love may be fully satisfied, it must stoop even unto nothingness, and must transform that nothingness into fire.  O my God, I know it—­ “Love is repaid by love alone."[15] Therefore I have sought, I have found, how to ease my heart, by rendering Thee love for love.

“Use the riches that make men unjust, to find you friends who may receive you into everlasting dwellings."[16] This, O Lord, is the advice Thou gavest to Thy disciples after complaining that “the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light."[17]

Child of light, as I am, I understood that my desires to be all things, and to embrace all vocations, were riches that might well make me unjust; so I set to work to use them for the making of friends.  Mindful of the prayer of Eliseus when he asked the Prophet Elias for his double spirit, I presented myself before the company of the Angels and Saints and addressed them thus:  “I am the least of all creatures.  I know my mean estate, but I know that noble and generous hearts love to do good.  Therefore, O Blessed Inhabitants of the Celestial City, I entreat you to adopt me as your child.  All the glory that you help me to acquire, will be yours; only deign to hear my prayer, and obtain for me a double portion of the love of God.”