Vatican City (AsiaNews) – "May the love for the Eucharist and the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament give us the courage to go on mission" and follow the example of the five new Blessed the Pope proclaimed today.

It is this that connects Charles I of Habsburg, French priests Pierre Vigne and Joseph Marie Cassant, Italian nun Maria Ludovica De Angelis –who dedicated her life to the youth in Argentina– and German mystic Katharina Emmerick, whose writings among other things inspired Mel Gibson in making The Passion of the Christ.

As Pope John Paul II said in today's Angelus, as different as these people are from one another, they all prove that "before the unfolding of time and the continuous twists and turns of history, God's revelation remains forever steady marking the horizon of our earthly path with the eternal".

In a St. Peter's Square bathing in the sun, crowned heads, aristocrats and commoners alike gathered. Representatives of the Habsburgs and Bourbons, joined by Queen Fabiola of Belgium, the sovereigns of Luxemburg and Liechtenstein, members of Italy's former Savoy royal family and the Turn und Taxis family, came for the beatification of Charles I, the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor, a man whom the Pope called "an example for those with political responsibilities in Europe". French priests and young Argentines were also present as were representatives of the governments of Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Kossovo. Some pilgrims wore uniforms from the First World War; South Tyroleans wore their typical regional costumes". All in all 20,000 people came for the occasion.

"Together with the whole Church," John Paul II said at the end of the ceremony, "let us praise and thank the Lord for the marvels he has accomplished through these good and faithful servants of the Gospel. May the Most Holy Mary, to whom we appeal in praying the Rosary in this month of October, help us become generous and courageous apostles of the Gospel too".