Compared to the last edition of 2014 there are various news items of recent years: the beatification of Fr Titus Zeman, the Venerability of Fr Giuseppe Arribat, of msgr Stefano Ferrando, Fr Francesco Convertini, Fr José Vandor and mgr Ottavio Ortiz Arrieta, as well as the new Servants of God: Fr Rodolfo Lunkenbein and Simão Bororo.
In total the Postulation concerns 169 people of which 9 Saints, 118 Blessed, 16 Venerable and 26 Servants of God. Overall, there are 51 causes being followed.
The graphic design was curated by Andrea Cugini, of the Salesian Graphic School of Milan, with the collaboration of Fr Erino Leoni, Director of the Postnovitiate of Nave (Brescia).
The poster with images of the Saints, Blessed, Venerable and Servants of God of the Salesian Family presents original photos that narrate the reality within which these men and women expressed their full devotion to God and to humanity. Through the real vision of their faces it is possible to exit the forms of a certain traditional iconography to recover the universal vocation to holiness within the plot or fabric of everyday life.
"Seeing them side by side shows how much our brief history is already marked with a great number of saints and candidates for sanctity," commented Fr Pierluigi Cameroni, Postulator General for the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family. 'Their closeness and visibility provoke wonder and gratitude and stimulate emulation, as Pope Francis recalled on the occasion of the All Saints Day of 2017: 'The saints are not perfect little models, but people marked by God. We can compare them to the stained glass of the churches, which let the light enter in different shades of color. The saints are our brothers and sisters who have received the light of God in their hearts and have transmitted it to the world, each according to their own tone. But all were transparent, they struggled to remove the stains and the darkness of sin, so as to let pass the gentle light of God. This is the purpose of life: to let in the light of God, and also the purpose of our life.'"
