A new website dedicated to Blessed Chiara Luce Badano offers news and reflections to the many people she inspires.
The words life, love, light have been connected to the name of
Chiara Luce Badano since the day of her beatification, and these words
are now continued on this website officially dedicated to the young
woman. It is being visited and appreciated by people of all ages and
from all over the world.
There are sections such as the one entitled
LOVE, which focuses on the spirituality that Chiara Luce lived, along
with news of the projects that are being brought ahead by the Chiara
Badano Foundation.
The section on “At Sassello” is all about the Centre
of Spirituality at La Maddalena, a small hamlet in Sassello, Italy,
which was the birthplace of Chiara Luce.
The “Publications” link
provides news, editorials, CDs and DVDs. The latest language to be added
is Portuguese. The main aim of the site is the desire to spread the
message of this young woman who witnessed to the Gospel.
Chiara Luce is also on Facebook with over 54,000 contacts. But
beyond the numbers, the life and depth of Chiara Luce continues to
uplift and to spread.
“I’m feeling a bit down,” one person writes on her Facebook wall,
“and then you appear with that candid expression on your face and that
genuine smile of yours, your eyes filled with love. And like magic my
heart is calmed. Thanks.”
On 25th September 2010 the young Chiara Luce, who died aged 18
years old, was beatified.
A group of more than 30 Irish people joined
tens of thousands of young people in Rome for the beatification and
thousands more from Ireland and all over the world followed the service
streamed live on the internet.
Chiara Luce Badano died just over 20 years ago saying to her
parents, “Be happy, because I am happy!” Her life, detailed on Facebook
and elsewhere, has inspired many young people.
She was always a striking, outgoing and lively person, but God’s
plan for her life became apparent when at seventeen she was diagnosed
with an incurable illness. Playing tennis one afternoon, she felt an
excruciating pain in her shoulder. Tests revealed that she had an
aggressive bone cancer.
From the time of her diagnosis, Chiara’s life
became a series of hospitalisations and treatments, which she faced with
great courage, offering each for Jesus. When she could no longer walk,
she commented: “If they asked me now if I want to walk, I’d say no,
because this way I’m closer to Jesus.”
She was ill for two short years and died in 1990 . In 2009 the
miraculous cure of an Italian boy from meningitis through her
intercession, paved the way to her being declared blessed. Bishop Pier
Giorgio Micchiardi, the postulator of Chiara Luce’s cause for
canonisation, said at the time there is a need for holiness nowadays
too.
“We need to help young people to find a direction, an aim, to
overcome insecurity and loneliness. This witness of faith and fortitude
in a young person of today is surprising: it makes an impression, it
instigates many people to change their lives, we have almost daily
testimony of it."
Chiara Luce was involved in the Focolare, which is present in 182
countries, reaching 5 million people. Its aim is to contribute towards
the fulfilment of Jesus’ prayer, ‘May they all be one’, through the
commitment of its members to live the gospel law of love.
See: www.chiaraluce.org