The Light of Christ: Blessed Chiara Luce Badano

This is the official Beatification image of Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano, who lived the charism of the Focolare movement, and died from a rare and painful form of bone cancer at the age of 18, in 1990. She was beatified in 2010. I was "researching" on the internet and I "stumbled" upon her story. Here, read about her yourself:

http://www.chiaraluce.org/

I felt like just throwing my silly book in the trash, but then I began to look at its words again, and I said to myself, "No, she understands what you are trying to say here, much better than you do. She understands suffering. She understands you."

Blessed Chiara Badano offered her life in union with Jesus's cry of abandonment on the Cross.

And I saw this face. All the theology books in the world are not worth a single human face. Now, when I look at the faces of my wife and children I feel as though I am seeing them for the first time.

I too follow a charism, an "ecclesial movement." Alas, I have not been a very good follower. But I have seen faces like this, although they are still always new, every time. This is what Msgr. Giussani calls "a different humanity." I recognize the human person, and yet at the same time it is clear that there is "Something Else," there is something new in this person's life that sets everything on fire!

Here the fire transforms the limits of human endurance into joy.

But I have seen this fire in many faces, living and renewing, bringing an energy, a joy, a hope, a friendship. A different humanity. It comes from a living man, a man named Jesus.

There is a glimpse of this light in every human face.