'Don't come home before midnight!' - a dying girl's gift to her parents

By -
Blessed Chiara Luce Badano (1971-1990)

The patron of the Congress Youth Space  at the 50th International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Dublin from 10 to 17 June is Blessed Chiara Luce Badano (1971-1990). In the September-October 2010 issue ofMisyon we published an article about her, TheSaint Who Failed Math.  

Ruggero and Maria Teresa Badano with their infant daughter

In the June 2012 issue of Intercom, the monthly published by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Fr Patrick Leahy tells a lovely story about this only child who was born to her parents Ruggero and Maria Teresa on 29 October 1971, eleven years after they married and who died 22 days short of her 19th birthday. On St Valentine’s Day 1990, when she was already very sick, Blessed Chiara Luce booked a meal for her parents at a local restaurant. Before they went there she said to them, ‘This evening look at one another in the eyes, and don’t come home before midnight!’ She then turned to her mother and said, ‘And remember, Mum, before me, there was Dad’.


I wish that every married couple had the clarity that this young person had, that the foundational relationship in the family is that between husband and wife, not between parent and child. The latter is a consequence of the first.

You can watch a short video about Blessed Chiara Luce here. [For some reason I can't post videos on this site lately. I don't know why.]
Posted by at   

Comments

  1. Ruth Ann Pilney10:37 am, June 04, 2012

    Thank you for this touching post about Chiara. The video was good,too. She was my patron for the year 2011. It was difficult to find information about her then.

    Blessed Chiara is a good choice as patron of the Youth Space. I believe we need to give more encouragement to children and youth to strive for holiness. They need models like Chiara to see that good friendships, joy and holiness are compatible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:35 pm, June 04, 2012

    Must read Fr..thankyou..

    ReplyDelete
  3. joannaB735:34 pm, June 04, 2012

    What a great story and inspirational video :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fr Seán Coyle6:27 am, June 05, 2012

    Ruth Ann, joy and holiness are not only compatible, I don't believe you can be holy without being joyful. Being joyful is not being 'happy-clappy' but is a gift given by Jesus himself in the depths of our being.

    I hope that Blessed Chiara Luce becomes more widely known.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAINT ELIZABETH, MOTHER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST- Feast: November 5

By -
Image
Elizabeth appears in the Gospel of Luke, where she is described as “righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly,”.  I imagine that she was warm, loving and obviously a safe harbour for young Mary, who was not married when she conceived.  When Mary came to visit her, Elizabeth was pregnant with St. John the Baptist and in her sixth month: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And how have I deserved that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, the moment that the sound of thy greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who has believed, because the things promised her by the Lord shall be accomplished.” 
Read more

The Memorare

By Helen Gonsalves -
Image
This popular prayer, a favorite of many Catholics, dates back to the 15th century and takes its name from the first Latin word of the prayer, "memorare," which means "remember." The Memorare is of unknown authorship, although it has been attributed to St. Augustine (354-430), St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) and, with more reason, to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153). St. Bernard's sermons on Mary were famous, and it was his Cistercian monks in the monastery of Citeaux in the 12th century who popularized the name "Our Lady" for Mary. The Memorare has also been attributed to the French cleric Claude Bernard (1588-1641), known as the "poor priest" of Paris, whose homilies contain passages that echo its words. No matter who wrote this prayer, it was Father Bernard who did much to popularize it, teaching it in hospitals and prisons, where Mary's intercession was effective in working miracles of grace. The first manuscript of the Mem...
Read more

'Greater Love: Richie Fernando SJ', a joy-filled Filipino missionary

By -
Image
 I haven't been able to post for more than a week as I was giving an eight-day directed retreat to eight sisters of the Missionaries of Charity near Manila. While I had some access to the internet it was rather slow. I had intended to make a post here on the murder of Fr Fausto Tentorio PIME , a 59-year-old Italian priest, in the Diocese of Kidapawan, Mindanao, on Monday 17 October. I will save that post for a later date. As I was looking for a video about Father Fausto I came across one about Brother Richard Michael 'Richie' Fernando SJ, a Filipino Jesuit scholastic who died while trying to prevent a troubled and disabled young man in Cambodia from throwing a grenade. That was in 1996 - on 17 October. Father Fausto gave his life exactly 15 years later. I remember the mixture of sorrow and pride I felt when I read of the death of Brother Richie, pride as a missionary in the Philippines that a young Filipino seminarian had given his life so spontaneously in order to sav...
Read more