Today is the BLESSED CLEAR LIGHT BADANO. Prayer to ask for a grace

O Father, source of all good,
we thank you for the admirable
testimony of Blessed Chiara Badano.
Animated by the grace of the Holy Spirit
and guided by the luminous example of Jesus,
has firmly believed in your immense love,
determined to reciprocate with all her might,
abandoning yourself with full confidence to your paternal will.
We humbly ask you:
also grant us the gift of living with you and for you,
while we dare to ask you, if it is part of your will,
grace ... (to expose)
by the merits of Christ, our Lord.
Amen

Biography of Blessed Chiara Luce Badano
In Sassello, a small town in the Ligurian hinterland in the province of Savona belonging to the diocese of Acqui (Piedmont),
Chiara was born on 29 October 1971, after eleven years of waiting.
The parents, Maria Teresa and Fausto Ruggero Badano
exult and thank the Madonna, in particular the Virgin of the Rocche,
to which the father had asked the grace of a son.
The little girl immediately shows a generous, joyful and lively temperament,
but also a frank and determined character. Mother educates her through the parables of the Gospel to love Jesus,
to listen to His little voice and to perform many acts of love.
Chiara prays willingly at home and at school!
Chiara is open to grace; always ready to help the weakest, she corrects meekly and is committed to being good. She would like all the children in the world to be happy like her; in a special way he loves the children of Africa and, only four years after he becomes aware of their extreme poverty, he says: "From now on we will take care of them!".
In this regard, to which he maintains faith, the decision to become a doctor will soon follow in order to go and treat them.
All her love of life shines through the notebooks of the first elementary classes: she is a really happy girl.
On the day of the first Communion, long awaited by her, she receives the book of the Gospels as a gift. It will be for her the "favorite book". A few years later he wrote: "I don't want and I cannot remain illiterate with such an extraordinary message."
Chiara grows up and shows a great love for nature.
Reached for sport, she will practice it in various ways: running, skiing, swimming, cycling, roller skates, tennis ..., but especially she will prefer the snow and the sea.
He is sociable, but he will succeed - albeit very lively - in becoming "all listening", always putting "the other" in first place.
Physically beautiful, it will be admired by all. Smart and full of skills, it shows an early maturity.
Very sensitive and helpful towards "the least", she covers them with attentions, also renouncing moments of leisure, which she will recover spontaneously. Then he will repeat: "I must love everyone, always love, love first", seeing in them the face of Jesus.
Full of dreams and enthusiasm at nine she discovers the Focolare Movement,
founded by Chiara Lubich with whom she has a branch correspondence.
He makes it his ideal to the point of involving his parents on the same journey.
Child, then adolescent and young like many others,
she shows herself totally available to God's plan for her and will never rebel against her.
Three realities prove to be decisive in his formation and on the path towards holiness: the family, the local Church - especially his Bishop - and the Movement, to which he will belong as Gen (New Generation).
Love is at the first place in his life, especially the Eucharist, which he yearns to receive every day.
And, although dreaming of forming a family, he feels Jesus as "Spouse"; it will be more and more its "everything", until it is repeated - even in the most atrocious pains -: "If you want it, Jesus, I want it too!".
After elementary and middle school, Chiara chooses classical high school.
The aspiration to become a doctor to travel to Africa has not faded. But pain begins to enter her life: not understood and accepted by a teacher, she is rejected.
The defense of his companions is worthless: he must repeat the year. After a first moment of despair, a smile reappears on his face.
Decisa will say: "I will love the new companions as I have loved those of before!" and offers his first great suffering to Jesus.
Chiara fully lives her adolescence: in dressing she loves beauty, the harmony of colors, order, but not refinement.
To the mother who invites her to wear slightly more elegant clothes, she replies: «I go to school clean and tidy: what matters is being beautiful inside!» and she feels uncomfortable if they tell her she is really beautiful.
But all this leads her several times to exclaim: "How hard it is to go against the current!".
He does not act as a teacher, he does not "preach": "I must not say of Jesus in words: I must give him with my behavior"; he lives the Gospel to the end and remains simple and spontaneous: it is truly a ray of light that warms hearts.
Without knowing it, he walks the "Little Way" of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus.
In a January 1986 meeting, he said:
«I understood the importance of" cutting ", to be and do only the will of God. And again, what St. Teresina said: that, before dying with a sword, you must die with a pin. I realize that the little things are the ones I don't do well, or the little pains ..., the ones that I let slip. So I want to go on loving all the pin shots ».
And, at the end, this resolution: «I want to love those who dislike me!».
Chiara has a great devotion to the Holy Spirit and conscientiously prepares herself to receive it in the sacrament of Confirmation which Bishop Livio Maritano, Bishop of Acqui, administers to her on 30 September 1984.
She had prepared herself with commitment and will often invoke Him asking for Light, that light of Love that will help her to be a small, but lively, luminous trail.
Now Chiara is well inserted in the new class. It is understood and positively evaluated.
Everything continues in the normal way until, during a tennis match, excruciating pain in the left shoulder forces her to drop the racket on the ground. After a slab and an incorrect diagnosis, hospitalization is provided.
The CT scan shows an osteosarcoma. It is February 2, 1989. The presentation of Jesus in the temple is remembered in the Church.
Chiara is seventeen.
Thus began his "via crucis": travel, clinical tests, hospitalizations, interventions and heavy treatments; from Pietra Ligure to Turin.
When Chiara understands the gravity of the case and the few hopes she doesn't speak; returned home from the hospital, she asks her mother not to ask her any questions. He does not cry, does not rebel nor despair. It ends in an absorbed silence of 25 endless minutes. It is his "garden of Gethsemane": half an hour of inner struggle, of darkness, of passion ..., and then never to withdraw.
He won the grace: "Now you can talk, mom!", And the bright smile of always returns on the face.
He said yes to Jesus.
That "always yes", which she had written as a child in a small section to the letter esse, will repeat it to the end. To reassure her, she does not show any concern to her mother: «You will see, I will make it: I am young!».
Time passes relentlessly and evil gallops moving to the spinal cord. Chiara inquires about everything, speaks with doctors and nurses. The paralysis stops her, but she will go on to say: "If now they asked me if I want to walk, I would say no, because in this way I am closer to Jesus". He does not lose peace; remains serene and strong; he is not afraid. The secret? "God loves me immensely." His trust in God is unshakable, in his "good Dad".
He wants to always do, and for love, His will: he wants to "play the game of God".
He experiences moments of total contact with the Lord:
«... You cannot even imagine what my relationship with Jesus is now. I feel that God is asking me for something more, greater ... I feel enveloped in a splendid design that gradually reveals itself to me», and finds himself at a height from which he would never want to go down: "... up there, where everything is silence and contemplation ...". Refuses morphine because it takes away lucidity.
I have nothing more and can only offer pain to Jesus "; and adds: «but I still have the heart and I can always love. It is now all a gift.
Always on offer: for the Diocese, for the Movement, for youth, for the Missions ...; hold up with her prayer and drag anyone who passes by her into love.
Deeply humble and self-forgetful, she is available to welcome and listen to those who approach her, in particular young people to whom she will leave a final message: "Young people are the future. I can no longer run, but I would like to pass them the torch as in the Olympics ... Young people have one life and it is worth spending it well ».
He does not ask for the miracle of healing and addresses the Holy Virgin by writing her a note:
"Heavenly mother, I ask you for the miracle of my recovery,
if this is not part of His Will, I ask you for the necessary strength
never give up. Humbly, your Chiara ».
Like a child he abandons himself to the love of Him who is Love: «I feel so small and the road to follow is so arduous ..., but it is the Bridegroom who comes to visit me».
He totally trusts God and invites his mother to do the same: "Don't worry: when I'm gone, you trust God and go on, then you've done everything!"
Unwavering trust.
The pains grip her, but she does not cry: it transforms the pain into love, and then turns her gaze to her "Abandoned Jesus": an image of Jesus crowned with thorns, placed on the bedside table next to the bed.
To the mother who asks her if she suffers a lot, she replies simply: «Jesus stains even the black dots with the chickenpox, and the chickenpox burns. So when I get to Heaven, I will be white as snow. "
On sleepless nights he sings and, after one of these - perhaps the most tragic - he will say: "I suffered a lot physically, but my soul sang", confirming the peace of his heart. In recent days she has received from Chiara Lubich the name of Light: "Because in your eyes I see the light of the Ideal lived to the end: the light of the Holy Spirit".
In Chiara there is now only one great desire: to go to Heaven, where she will be "so very happy"; and prepares for the "wedding". She asks to be covered with a wedding dress: white, long and simple.
He prepares the liturgy of "his" Mass: chooses the readings and songs ...
Nobody will cry, but sing loudly and celebrate, because "Chiara meets Jesus"; rejoice with her and repeat: «Now Chiara Luce is happy: she sees Jesus!». Shortly before, he had said with certainty: "When a young girl of seventeen-eighteen goes to Heaven, in Heaven she celebrates".
The offerings of the Mass must be intended for poor children in Africa, as he had already done with the money received as a gift for the 18 years. This is the motivation: «I have Everything!» How could he have done otherwise, if not to think to the end of who has nothing?
At 4,10 on Sunday 7 October 1990,
day of the Resurrection of the Lord and feast of the Virgin of the Holy Rosary,
Chiara reaches the much loved "Bridegroom".
It is his dies natalis.
In the Canticle of Canticles (2, 13-14) we read: “Get up, my friend, my beautiful, and come! O my dove, who are in the crevices of the rock, in the hiding places of the cliffs, show me your face, make me hear your voice, because your voice is sweet, your face is graceful ".
Shortly before, he had whispered the last farewell to his mother with a recommendation: «Hi, be happy, because I am!».
Hundreds and hundreds of people, especially young people, attend the funeral, celebrated two days later by "his" Bishop.
Even in tears, the atmosphere is one of joy; the songs that rise to God express the certainty that she is now in the true Light!
By flying to Heaven, she wanted to leave a gift again: the corneas of those wonderful eyes that, with her consent,
they were transplanted into two young people, giving them back sight.
Today they, even if unknown, are the "living relic" of Blessed Chiara!