The church sees her ideal image in the saints. The new blesseds present this image to us again with new force. They serve to reawaken the Christian community’s awareness that we are all called to holiness. Every baptized person is called to become a saint!

This applies to individuals but also to families. Now more than ever, the Church needs holy families, that is, families which are authentic "domestic churches," in the ordinary circumstances of everyday life.

It is in these families that the seeds of the most heroic sanctity are nurtured. Certainly God can raise up saints even in the most difficult circumstances, but experience shows that the family is ordinarily the first nursery of holiness.

The new blesseds all came from simple, devout families. One need only recall Blessed Granzotto, the youngest of nine children, who received his early education in a poor family, sorely tried but rich in faith. Thus he was prepared in the best of ways for following the path of perfection in the great family of the Poverello of Assisi.

May Mary most holy, who rejoices with us over these her beatified children, stir up in the whole Church a great longing for holiness. May she help young people understand that this is the only way that leads to the fullness of humanity and to true joy. May she guide Christian families in fulfilling their sublime, irreplaceable mission for the coming of God’s kingdom.