Chiara Badano was considered “the prettiest girl in town.” She lived with enthusiasm and joy, as a typical teenager who liked to go out to be with friends and have fun, who liked pretty clothes and jewelry in a healthy normal way. Her bearing was open-hearted and dignified, modest without affectation, admirable and approachable. She had many friends, but also often sought out those in her peer group who seemed lonely or marginalized. Chiara experienced all the securities and insecurities, the discoveries and dramas of adolescent life. She had a boyfriend at one point, and experienced heartbreak. She had trouble with math in school, had misunderstandings with teachers, and — at times — those kind of "disagreements" with her father that are common for teens (her father and mother loved her very much, and she was very close to them). She enjoyed the outdoors; she loved hiking and swimming, and was an avid tennis player. She also liked to sing, and appreciated 1980s pop music (including Bruce Springsteen). She was a girl of her time, and a girl of deep faith. That faith grew immensely during her nearly two years of suffering from osteosarcoma, until her death three weeks short of her 19th birthday on October 7, 1990.
Since childhood, Chiara had vivid faith, full of compassion, that was formed in her by the pedagogy of the Focolare Movement. She recognized Jesus in the faces of others: her friends, the poor, drug addicts, forgotten people, atheists who hungered for God without realizing it. She wanted to serve God with her whole life, and to love God especially in persons and places that seemed furthest from the "reach" of Christ's Church — even among those who might have considered themselves His enemies. At age 12 she said, "I discovered that Jesus Abandoned [on the Cross] is the key to unity with God.... I understood that I can find Him in the distant ones, the atheists, and that I must love them in a very special way, without interest!" She often said, with ardent simplicity, that "we have to love everybody" She had a special attentiveness in listening to her companions and acquaintances who were struggling with serious problems, hindered by broken family situations, or caught in the self-destructive habits that plague so many adolescents today.
Her cancer diagnosis challenged her faith, but the Lord helped her to discern that He was calling her through it to a more radical love — to be united to the sufferings of Jesus. During her times in the hospital, she suffered much and sometimes felt overwhelmed but she trusted more deeply in the love of Jesus. "God loves me immensely!" she said. With this love, she sought out and accompanied others in the hospital who were struggling to break addictions, who suffered from mental illness, and those who were discouraged or hopeless.
Chiara hoped to be cured of the cancer and underwent all the standard medical treatments of thirty-five years ago. But above all she was committed to God's will, and she knew that in the embrace of the crucified Christ, even her suffering was endowed with meaning for the salvation of the world. She offered her powerlessness and pain in union with "Jesus Abandoned," and endured everything with an increasingly transfigured joy in the awareness that the mystery of the Cross was at work in her even as her prognosis grew more grim and her condition more painful and paralysing.
Friends who came to see her were struck by this mysterious strength-in-weakness. "At first we felt like we were going to visit her in order to support her," they said, "but quite soon we noticed that whenever we went into her room, the feeling came over us that we were being projected into the splendid adventure of God's love. And yet, Chiara didn't say any extraordinary words, she didn't write pages and pages of diary. She simply loved."
Near the end, she said, "I have nothing left except my heart, but with my heart I can still love!"
We are all called — as the Lord wills, through the various circumstances of our lives — to embark upon this "splendid adventure of God's love." Blessed Chiara Luce is a light to guide us along the way, and to intercede for us that we might know the surpassing love of Jesus Christ who changes us and enables us to share in His death and resurrection and live forever in His glory.
"I offer everything, my failures, my pains and joys to Him, starting again every time the Cross makes me feel all its weight. The important thing is to do God’s will. I might have had plans about myself but God came up with this. The sickness came to me at the right time... [and] now I feel like I am wrapped into a wonderful design that is slowly unfolding itself to me…. What a free and immense gift life is and how important it is to live every instant in the fullness of God. I feel so little and the road ahead is so arduous that I often feel overwhelmed with pain! But that’s the Spouse coming to meet me. Yes, I repeat it: 'If you want it Jesus, so do I'" (Blessed Chiara Luce Badano).
