"Holiness spreads joy and hope, responds to the thirst for happiness that men feel, even today". It was said today by the Pope, who, in receiving in audience the postulators accredited to the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, lingered on the "need that, even in this day and age, there should be witnesses that embody the perennial novelty of the Gospel in the real circumstances of life, making it an instrument of salvation for the whole world". Quoting his latest encyclical, "Spe salvi", Benedict XVI remarked that, "over the last few decades, religious and cultural interest in the champions of Christian holiness that show the real face of the Church has increased". From this perspective, "the saints, if properly presented in their spiritual dynamism and in their historical reality, contribute to making the word of the Gospel and the mission of the Church more believable and attractive", because "contact with them opens the way to true spiritual resurrections, to long-lasting conversions and to the flourishing of new saints". "The saints said the Pope usually engender more saints, and their closeness to the people, or even just to their footsteps, is always healthy: it purges and lifts the mind, opens the heart to the love of God and of one’s neighbours" (continued).
