Vatican City, 12 December, 2019 / 11:00 am (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis said Thursday that the often hidden holiness lived out in everyday life is a true light within the Church.
“Holiness permeates and always accompanies the life of the pilgrim Church over time, often in a hidden and almost imperceptible way,” Pope Francis said Dec. 12 in the Vatican’s apostolic palace.
"We must learn to see the holiness in the patient people of God: in parents who raise their children with so much love, in men and women who work to bring bread home, in the sick, in the elderly who continue to smile," the pope said.
In an audience with the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis underlined the importance of recognizing the most hidden and least striking heroic sanctity, which he said is equally extraordinary as that which shines most visibly.
The Vatican congregation celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. In 1969, St. Pope Paul VI split the centuries-old Sacred Congregation of Rites into two separate Vatican dicasteries: the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.