Last week, in the Denver Catholic Register (DCR) was a short article about a new Blessed, Chiara Luce Badano. I was intrigued because this new Blessed died in 1990, only 19 short years ago, and the Church usually takes much longer to investigate the life of someone who has been proposed for sainthood. So I went to the Italian web to read more about her.
Let’s start at the beginning: what is a Saint? We need to look at the official definition in order to understand what it takes before the Church declares that someone is an official resident of Heaven, that is, a Saint. These days, we use a lot of words mighty loosely, and Saint is one of them, “love” is another. Think about it: we “love” everything, from chocolate to autos to clothes to…. “Saint” is another over-used word, we apply it to anyone whom we like, or who does something of which we approve. But, according to paragraph No. 828 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a Saint is someone who “practiced heroic virtues and lived in fidelity to God’s grace,” that is: someone whose goal in life is to imitate Christ, taking up His cross and focusing on Heaven. That is why the Church does NOT use the word “Saint” loosely and takes Her time in Her process of discovery and discernment.
Back to Chiara Luce. The English translation of Chiara could be twofold: “light,” (as in “pale”) or “clear,” (as in “easily understood” or “transparent,” or “obvious”). Luce, on the other hand, has only one meaning: “light” as in the light of the sun. So, the name of this extraordinary young woman was, very appropriately as we will see, “Clear Light.”
She was born in 1971 in Sassello, a tiny town among the beautiful green hills of Liguria. Her father, a truck driver, and her mother, a home-maker, were devout Catholics, and ardently desired to have children, but no child was coming. They confidently turned to the Blessed Mother, with the title of Madonna della Rocca for her intercession. Eleven years after their marriage, Chiara was born. In gratitude, her mother raised her to love the Lord. As soon as her little daughter could understand, she taught her how to live using the example of the Gospel’s parables, and to “always say yes” to Jesus. And so, the child learned to love deeply and to practice generosity. Open to God’s grace, it was easy for her to donate all her small savings to charity rather than spending them on herself. On the day of her First Communion she was given a special edition of the Gospel. For her, it was a “magnificent book,” “an extraordinary message,” saying that “As easy as it is for me to learn the alphabet, so it should be to learn how to live the Gospel.”
When she was nine, she entered a Catholic movement, Il Focolare, which helped her progress towards Heaven. When she was in high school, at 17, an excruciating pain in the left shoulder revealed the disease that would end her short life. After many tests and painful surgeries, it was discovered that she had osteo sarcoma, that is, bone cancer. When she learned of it, she did not cry or complain; she remained silent for 25 minutes and then said “If this is Your Will, my Jesus, then it is my will,” and kept smiling the bright smile that attracted everyone to her. She comforted her parents, she underwent painful therapy without a word, she refused morphine, because she said that it would cloud her mind, and offered everything to ask God’s mercy for the Church, her family and her friends, often repeating that “suffering, when freely embraced, makes us free.”
During her frequent stays at the hospital her smile, her joy was such that she attracted people like a magnet. Many hospital workers who had fallen away from the Faith were converted. When her last surgery left her legs paralyzed, she would say: “I have nothing left to give, but I still have my heart, and with that I can love.” Her grieving mother asked her if she suffered very much. Chiara answered: “Jesus is taking away the little black spots on my soul with bleach, and bleach burns. But that way, when I finally arrive in Heaven, I’ll be as white as snow.” After a particularly painful night, she said: “Yes, I suffered much, but my soul was singing.” When she knew that death was near, she planned her own funeral, and chose a wedding gown in which to be buried because, she said, “I want to be ready when my Groom comes to take me.” And so it was. Her last words to her grieving mother were: “Be happy mother, because I am happy.” Clear Light was only 19.
Many would say: “That’s a terrible life to have to live! Better she had never been born.” To which the Christian would answer: “Her life was like a shining light that came down from Heaven, to show us that the Holy Spirit is still alive and well in the world.” Chiara’s life was more meaningful, more joyful than the life of many of the youth among us who seem to live for pleasure and material possessions, and who seem never to be happy or joyful, because they don’t know the meaning of life. They don’t have a destination toward which to walk. Chiara Luce Badano, pray for us and for our youth.
