Therese never set foot in a missionary territory and was never able to practice any missionary activity directly. Yet she did grasp that the Church has a heart, and she grasped that love is this heart. She understood that the Apostles can no longer preach and the martyrs can no longer shed their blood if this heart is no longer burning. She grasped that love is all, that it reaches beyond times and places. And she understood that she herself, the little nun hidden behind the grille of a Carmel in a provincial town in France, could be present everywhere, because as a loving person she was there with Christ in the heart of the Church...
This center, which Therese calls simply "heart" and "love", is the Eucharist. For the Eucharist is not only the enduring presence of the divine and human love of Jesus Christ, which is always the source and origin of the Church and without which she would founder, would would be overcome by the gates of hell. As the presence of the divine and human love of Christ, it is also always the channel open from the man Jesus to the people who are His "members", themselves becoming a Eucharist and thereby themselves a "heat" and a "love" for the Church...
The heart must remain the heart, that through the heart the other organs may serve aright. It is at that point, when the Eucharist is being celebrated aright.
Taken from "Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI".
St. Therese... Pray for us!
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