Celebrating with Blessed Clare Badano

In Sassello, the town where Chiara Luce was born, from 27 to 28 October a large number of young people met together to celebrate her life. The title chosen for the weekend was: ‘I have everything’. In four stages the young people went around the town and listened to many things from people who had witnessed the life of Chiara Luce. They felt as if they were having a truly personal rendezvous with her. Meeting Chiara Luce’s parents, Ruggero and Maria Teresa Badano was a powerful moment. They spoke of many details from Chiara Luce’s life right up to the last period of her life when she began her intense journey towards Heaven. Immediately after that there was a time of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, where readings from some things written by Chiara Luce were interspersed between pauses for thought, and then a visit to the cemetery, to ‘get together’ with Chiara Luce in a moment’s intimate conversation. Chiara Luce’s young people, however, with find it easy to go from moments of profound reflection to moments of joyful recreation, all lived with the same intensity and a spirit aiming at the highest values, as was seen at the party at the end of the day run by a young DJ.

At Mass on Sunday more than 700 people crowded into the church. In the homily the parish priest of Sassello invited the young people to have courage and trust in God, following the example of Chiara Luce who one day encouraged her mother saying, ‘Trust in God and you have done everything.’ In the afternoon the programme carried on and the small parish hall was unable to contain all those present, and so the show about the Chiara Luce’s life, put on by the theatrical company Passi di Luce (Steps of Light) from Castelfiorentino (near Florence), had be done in two sittings.

By now Chiara Luce and the example of her life have gone irrepressibly beyond the confines of the region of Liguria where Sassello is located. This can be seen both in the fact that in Sassello there were young people from 33 different nations and in a Skype call to Mexico where in the little town called El Diamante (The Diamond) there is a chapel dedicated to Blessed Chiara Luce. There in Mexico 1,700 people had held three days of celebrations at which a musical about Chiara Luce’s life had been a great hit. There was tremendous joy also in Isernia, in Italy, celebrating Chiara Luce’s life in a musical show called ‘Be happy, because I am’. It was put on by artists from Azioni Musicali from Loppiano (near Florence) for more than 700 people.

The general impression is that in these few days the ‘torch’ of Chiara Luce has been handed on  to many, many young people, just as she wanted.