” ” ” “"May the example and consistent protection of these pillars of the Church support you, dear boys and girls, in the effort to follow Christ; may they help you, dear sick people, live your condition with patience and serenity; may they drive you, dear newly-weds, to testify your brave adhesion to the evangelical lessons in your families and in society". With this threefold invitation, the Pope, in greeting the Italian-speaking devotees at the end of today’s general audience, recalled that next Sunday "we will celebrate the day of Saints Peter and Paul". Among the devotees, Benedict XVI greeted "with great affection the large group of Famiglia Orionina, joyfully gathered around the Vicar of Christ to celebrate the Pope’s feast" and to attend the Pope’s blessing of the statue of Saint Luigi Orione in the Vatican, which took place today just before the audience. "May the unveiling of the statue of your Founder wished the Pontiff be, for all his spiritual children, a renewed stimulus to go on along the way traced by Saint Luigi Orione, especially to bring to the Successor of Peter as he said himself ‘the small ones, the humble classes, the poor labourers and the outcasts from life, who are dearest to Christ and the real treasures of the Church of Jesus Christ’".
