20th century
Feast: October 29
When the doctors told her the cancer was terminal, she asked her mother to hand her her hairbrush — 'If I have to meet Jesus,' she said, 'I want to look my best.'
Chiara Badano was a normal Italian teenager — she played tennis, listened to music, went swimming, and struggled with math. She joined the Focolare movement at nine and took its message of unity and love seriously, but she wasn't considered unusually pious. Then, at seventeen, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma — bone cancer. The treatments were brutal. She lost the use of her legs. The pain was constant. And something happened that no one expected: Chiara became radiant. Not in the sanitized way hagiographies usually describe, but in a way that startled nurses and doctors. She stopped complaining. When a particularly painful treatment failed, she said, 'It's for you, Jesus. If you want it, I want it too.' Focolare's founder, Chiara Lubich, gave her the nickname 'Luce' — light. Chiara planned her own funeral, choosing the songs and the readings. She picked out a white dress instead of a burial gown. She asked that her organs be donated. In her last hours, she told her mother, 'Goodbye, Mamma. Be happy, because I'm happy.' She died on October 7, 1990, at eighteen. The funeral drew hundreds of young people, many of whom said afterward that they had never seen anyone die like that — with that much peace.