Brazilian Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life said, “Chiara Luce shows us a fulfilled life that teaches the joy found in accepting the unforeseeable plan of God. By choosing love, she hit upon the heart of Christianity. Her greatness comes from having remained a normal girl. We need people like her. Young people who don’t go to church find in her an example of normality that takes them to God and then leads them to the Church.”
Since her beatification in September 2010, the town where the eighteen-year-old was born and grew up has become a place for people, especially the young, to visit from all over Europe and beyond.
For example, before the Bishop’s visit, a coachload of young people from Oporto, the second city of Portugal and their bishop visited to see where Chiara Luce lived and to get to know how she lived the Gospel in everyday life.
But it was a sight to see 65 bishops and cardinals from all over the world come to the town of 1,900 inhabitants on the border between the Italian regions of Liguria and Piedmont.
These bishops know the Focolare Movement, as did Chiara Luce, and they told Maria Teresa and Ruggero (Chiara Luce’s parents), that from the outset, the beatified young woman’s influence has spread.
“Now lots of young people from all over the world are coming,” Chiara Luce’s mother confirmed. “There is one coach after another. Large numbers of boys and girls who don’t believe come to our home and look and listen and when they come out of Chiara’s bedroom they make the sign of the cross, as if taking away a gift from my daughter.”
Sitting in their garden, the Badanos answered questions of the bishops such as, “What kind of young people come here? Does Chiara Luce only have an effect on young people? How do you become a saint?”
Chiara Luce’s parents drew from their daughter’s wisdom, telling the bishops about things she did or said.
“The Church has now a very contemporary example of what it means to live the Gospel and Christian love,” commented Archbishop Francis Xavier Kreingsak Kovithavanij of Bangkok.
Archbishop Francisco Pérez González of Pamplona in Spain agreed; “Jesus has shown himself to the young and uninstructed. I saw it yet again in Chiara Luce and I have reflected on the humility displayed by her parents.”
The bishops went in small groups into the room where she had suffered from cancer and died. It was the feast of the Transfiguration and Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, until recently in charge of the Pontifical Council for the Family, presided over the Eucharistic celebration at the conclusion of the day at Sassello.
The bishops went to her tomb, “to ask Chiara Luce’s intercession and protection for the path to holiness along the way of the spirituality of unity opened up by Chiara Lubich,” as Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, Archbishop Emeritus of Prague, said.
There had never been such a large number of bishops together in the town, and the mayor, Paolo Badano (the surname is common there) was very proud.
He expressed his gratitude to Chiara Luce and, after reading out a message of greeting from Claudio Burlando, the Regional President, he called her, “the smiling saint.”
Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti (Focolare President and Co-President) were also present for the visit.