He pointed to how St. Thérèse described her vocation in her autobiography, “Story of a Soul”: “I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood it was Love alone that made the Church’s members act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood.”
“I understood that love comprised all vocations. … 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! … In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love.’”
Pope Francis added that this love can be seen in the lives of contemplative monks and nuns who work and pray in silence for the whole Church.
The pope also highlighted the example of St. Gregory of Narek — a 10th-century Armenian priest, monk, mystic, and poet — whom Francis proclaimed a doctor of the Church in 2015.
“St. Gregory spent almost his entire life in the monastery of Narek. There he learned to peer into the depths of the human soul and, by fusing poetry and prayer together, marked the pinnacle of both Armenian literature and spirituality,” he said.
“What is most striking about him is the universal solidarity of which he is an interpreter. He shares the fate of all men and dedicates his life to interceding for them. He writes: ‘I carry in me the whole of the earth, and yet I am the deputy of the whole world to offer its prayers.’ He calls himself ‘the prayer-offerer of the whole world’” (Book of Lamentations, 28).