All is holy here for him who comes as a true Christian pilgrim. As for me, I only see the apostles, the martyrs, the holy confessors of all ages. There is not a corner of Rome which is not a monument of faith or piety.
The house in which I dwell, for example, where I came by chance, has been the shrine where for twenty-five or thirty years the blessed Cardinal Tommasi practiced so many virtues which have raised him to the rank of the blessed. He has sanctified it by his presence; his room still exists…
It is the same everywhere. Here are found all the saints since Saint Peter down to the blessed Benoit Labre and others still more modern. Here I must cease or be carried away too much. I wish only to tell you once more that I bear within me our whole family in all these holy places that I visit every day.
Letter to Fr Hippolyte Courtès in Aix, 6 December 1825, EO VI n 210