Pope asks young people to learn from beatified teen

Pope asks young people to learn from beatified teen

By Catholic News Service

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Blessed Chiara Badano, an Italian who died of bone cancer just before her 19th birthday, witnessed to the world the fact that God's love is stronger than suffering and death, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"Only Love with a capital L gives true happiness," and that's what Blessed Badano showed her family, her friends and her fellow members of the Focolare Movement, the pope said Sept. 26 during his midday Angelus address.

At Rome's Shrine of Divine Love Sept. 25, Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, presided over the beatification of the young Italian who died in 1990.

Pope Benedict said young people can find in Blessed Badano "an example of Christian consistency," because she was certain of God's love and trusted in that love even as she was dying.

"We give praise to God because his love is stronger than evil and death; and we give thanks to the Virgin Mary who leads young people, even in the midst of difficulty and suffering, to fall in love with Jesus and discover the beauty of life," the pope said.

At the beatification Mass, Archbishop Amato called Blessed Badano a missionary of Jesus, "who invites us to rediscover the freshness and enthusiasm of the faith."

Even as she lost the use of her legs and was dying, she shared her faith and God's love with the dozens of people who would visit her each day, he said.

"Her last gift was her corneas, the only organs that were still transplantable" because they were not damaged by the cancer that had spread throughout her body, the archbishop said. "They were given to two young people who can see today thanks to her."

Blessed Badano's parents, Teresa and Ruggero, attended the beatification Mass.

Her mother told Vatican Radio that Chiara's religiosity grew gradually and normally.

When Chiara got sick, she said, "She taught us how to do God's will, like she did, because you don't just say 'yes' when everything is going well."

After the beatification, about 8,000 young members of the Focolare Movement gathered in the Vatican audience hall for a nighttime celebration of Blessed Badano's life with readings and singing.