Saint Who?
Saints Who Achieved Sanctity Young
Blessed Chiara Badano
Laywoman († 1990) Feast: October 29
Ruggero and Teresa Badano prayed and waited for eleven years before their daughter, Chiara, was born. Ruggero was a truck driver, and the happy family lived in a small village in northern Italy. Chiara was a healthy, outgoing girl who loved to play, though she sometimes argued with her parents.
Chiara was nine years old when she attended a meeting of the Focolare Movement, a Christian renewal organization. The young girl fell in love with Jesus, deciding to choose him above everything else in life. As she became a teenager, she enjoyed typical activities such as singing and dancing, but her devotion also continued to deepen, even though she was sometimes teased about it at school. She was a dutiful student, but she struggled with her classwork and even failed her first year of high school.
While playing tennis one day, she felt an excruciating pain in her shoulder. Scans revealed that the seventeen-year-old had bone cancer. Her first reaction—which persisted throughout her two-year-long battle with cancer—was, “If you want it, Jesus, I want it too.” Chiara’s smile and willingness to accept suffering for love of Christ encouraged other patients, Focolare members who came to visit her, her doctors, and even a cardinal. Near the end, she prepared for her funeral like it was her wedding Mass. Two thousand people attended her funeral.
Heavenly Father, may we accept your will
with childlike trust and joy.
