“I offer everything, my failures, my pains and joys to Him, starting again every time the Cross makes me feel all its weight. The important thing is to do God’s will. I might have had plans about myself but God came up with this. The sickness came to me at the right time… [and] now I feel like I am wrapped into a wonderful design that is slowly unfolding itself to me.”
A member of the Focolare ecclesial movement, she wrote to Chiara Lubich, the founder of the movement: “I’ve rediscovered the Gospel in a new light. Now I want this book to be the sole purpose of my life!”
(Blessed Chiara Badano, who died on October 7, 1990 at the age of 18 after a painful struggle with osteosarcoma. She was beatified in 2010; her feast day is today.)