The Suffering of Chiara Badano
Article II in the Ordinary Saints series
The nurse looked up from her papers. Fr. Don Lino approached with his signature stern look and gave a halfhearted “Buongiorno, Fioralba” to the desk nurse. The Father looked as disheveled as always, an appearance made all the more incongruous by his tall frame and strong countenance. It always seemed tinted with a constant look of vague judgment—a look common among the clergy, one that had helped keep Fioralba away from church since leaving home.
“Buongiorno, Father Lino. Are we here for Miss Badano again?”
“Yes. It's about that time of day again” he said.
“Very well, I’ll escort you to her, Father.”
The two made their way through the winding halls of the Italian hospital. First through the ER, then the pediatric ward, and finally to a hallway sadder than the rest. The two stopped several doors into the cancer ward, where patients spent their final agonizing days however they could. Fioralba gazed into the window as Fr. Don Lino entered and offered Communion to the dying girl. Rounds of chemotherapy had left Chiara Badano with a close haircut. She had long been bed-bound and incapable of even walking, seemingly paler and skinnier everyday. Yet as she received the small communion wafer, her face jumped from pain to joy. It brought Fioralba no pleasure to see her in this condition. Yet despite the orders for bed rest, the young girl constantly had guests coming in and out. Her parents and relatives, of course, visited each day, but many of her fellow Catholic youths also came to cheer her up. The Father visited her each day, and at such a consistent time that the nurse began marking the halfway point of her shift by his arrival.
Several minutes passed before Fr. Lino said his goodbyes, and as he left, the girl pressed something into his hand. As he left the room, Fioralba asked “How is she today, Father?” They both looked through the window dividing them from Chiara.
He sighed before responding “She knows it will not be long now. Every day is a gift to her, yet every day brings more suffering.”
The nurse raised her eyebrows. “She's still refusing morphine? Surely you can talk some sense into her, Father—there's nothing else she can do at this point.”
Fr. Lino grew quiet for a moment. In a hushed voice, he said, “That's precisely why she won’t take it. How did she put it? ‘It will take away my lucidity and I can only offer Jesus my pain.’ We have to respect that it's just her suffering here and now; she has no time for charity or vocation. She is truly as Jesus on his cross. Even now she hands me this, a paper detailing what songs to play at her funeral.” He folded the paper into his robes.
Fioralba had seen suffering before. Everyday she saw car accident victims, stabbing victims, abuse survivors, and every possible form of physical harm imaginable. All this suffering and evil. “Father,” she started, “why her? Why does He make her suffer like this? Chiara should be playing with friends after school right now, not in a hospice bed. It just seems…so cruel. So malicious for God.” Her eyes watered in anger at the robbery of youth and life.
Fr. Lino responded immediately “Why any of us? Of course it's unfair. The young die, the innocent suffer. It is all unnatural. I do not know why Jesus permitted this. But I also believe, and would not live as I do, if I did not know Christ’s suffering. When our world condemns even God himself to suffer, who among us is above that?”
Fioralba paused for a moment. It was a pretty-sounding sentiment, but nothing different from Sunday school. But what was happening in the room was new to her. As the two quietly stood watching over Chiara, the girl began moving her hand through a rosary. Chiara’s fragile lips reverently parted in a familiar pattern over and over again. She took all the time in the world for prayer when she had so little time herself, and though she was in pain, she was happy. Chiara’s composure seemed almost disconnected from her suffering. When her eyes occasionally met the nurse’s, they revealed a deep light within the broken girl. No wonder her Catholic peers had taken to calling her “light,” or Luce. Fioralba could feel that light radiating towards her like a gentle invitation to join in Chiara’s joy. Her devoted suffering greatly impressed Fioralba, and whenever their eyes met, she vividly recalled staring at the crucifix during a homily when she was a small girl.
Fr. Lino said a quick prayer before the two turned to depart. Yet as Fioralba gazed at him she was shocked to see his strict countenance dropped. It was like an unhappy permafrost had melted away, leaving tears in his aging eyes. The sense of distant judgment had faded, as Lino sobbed softly “What do I know? Years of formation and training, decades of prayers and Masses. Yet I know nothing next to this Chiara Luce Badano.” The two walked in silence back through the sad hallway, into the pediatric ward, and past the ER’s crashcarts. As they approached the front door of the hospital the Father had regained some of his composure, but not his previous sternness. “Thank you for your time Miss Fioralba. I trust I will be seeing you again tomorrow?”
The nurse nodded and sat down at her desk. “Same place, same time, father. I am so glad you are here for that girl–she’s so brave.” The priest turned to leave, but stopped as Fioralba asked in a quiet voice, “Oh and Father, I was wondering—what time is Mass tomorrow?”
Chiara Luce Badano was a 16 year old girl when she was diagnosed with a form of aggressive bone cancer, osteogenic sarcoma. After a prolonged two year struggle, she would pass away at the age of 18 on October 9th, 1990. Despite her immense physical suffering, she rejected painkillers to offer her suffering to Jesus; her final words were “Mom, Ciao! Be happy, because I am.” Her funeral procession shut down the entirety of her home town Sassello, Italy. On September 25th, 2010, she was declared a “Blessed,” the last stage before Sainthood in the Catholic Church.
This article is part of a series. For more articles in this series, see below.
