We were sitting on a hill in the South of France under the blazing sun and quietly listening to these words of St Thérèse: ‘I have recognized my vocation … my vocation is Love … In the heart of the Church I am Love, c'est l'amour seul qui compte'.

At just that time - so I gathered from letters from home - people listening to the wireless were shattered to hear desperate appeals coming through: ‘Help, they are burning everything down… Perhaps we can hold out another hour, send us help … People of the West, don't let us down … our last lines are falling … where are you?’ And then quite suddenly the appeals stopped; there was a terrifying silence.