An opportunity to "contemplate, in the virtues of martyrdom and the works of the saints, the inexhaustible fecundity of the Gospel, which never fails to be embodied in different cultures and through different historical times". With these words, Card. José Saraiva Martins, Prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, summarised the meaning of the work done within such Papal Body, thanking the Pope for the audience he granted today to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints and the College of Postulators. "Next and obediently to the Pope said the cardinal , our deaconship breathes in the universal dimensions of the Church and shares the pastoral love of his visible Head, who, also by means of beatifications and canonisations, edifies God’s people, showing them new models of Christian life". Hence the opportunity to "listen to the heartbeats of the Church, which praises and serves God, especially through the holiness of its children", and "the privilege of contemplating the sanctifying work of God’s Spirit, which imprints Christ’s traits on to every baptised one". From this perspective, for the present of the Papal Congregation, "the saints are a great spur and help", because "all the history of the Church is a history of holiness, enlivened by the only Love that has its source in God", as Benedict XVI wrote in his first encyclical, "Deus caritas est".
