Blessed Chiara “Luce” Badano, A Young Life Filled with Christ’s Light

Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano

Chiara Badano was born on October 29, 1971, and grew up in Sassello, a small town in northern Italy. Her parents, Ruggero and Maria Teresa, had waited eleven years for a child. They welcomed their daughter with gratitude and raised her in a loving Catholic home. Chiara grew into a lively, determined girl who enjoyed friendship, sports, and the beauty of the countryside. Faith accompanied the ordinary pleasures and responsibilities of her childhood.

At nine, Chiara became involved in the Focolare Movement, founded by Chiara Lubich. Its emphasis on God’s love, Christian unity, and living the Gospel deeply influenced her. She joined its young members and began corresponding with Lubich. A copy of the Gospels, received at her First Communion, became especially important to her. She wanted to put its teachings into practice through the way she treated her family, classmates, and anyone who needed help.

Her generosity took practical forms. Her mother remembered that, at four, Chiara initially resisted giving away her toys, then chose some of her new ones for poor children. As she grew older, she visited an elderly woman in a retirement home, helping with simple personal tasks and keeping her company. Friends found her ready to listen to their difficulties. She also experienced disappointments, including having to repeat a school year, and worked to begin again when she struggled.

In 1988, a sharp pain in her shoulder interrupted a tennis game. The pain persisted, and examinations eventually revealed osteosarcoma, a serious bone cancer that had spread. At seventeen, Chiara entered a life of hospital visits, surgery, and demanding treatment. In February 1989, she underwent an operation in Turin. Her response to suffering became closely associated with a brief prayer. “If you want it, Jesus, I want it too.” She also asked Mary for the strength to persevere.

Accepting the diagnosis required a struggle. Her mother recalled that, after learning how serious her condition was, Chiara returned home and asked for silence. She lay on her bed for about twenty five minutes before telling her mother that they could speak again. Maria Teresa remembered that interval as a decisive moment in her daughter’s acceptance of what lay ahead. The cheerful girl who loved tennis and cycling now faced the possibility that her life would be very short.

As the illness progressed, Chiara lost the use of her legs. Her physical limitations increased, but she continued welcoming visitors and listening to their concerns. She offered her suffering for young people, the missions, and her diocese. Her spirituality centered on remaining close to Jesus crucified and abandoned. Even when she could no longer take part in the activities she loved, she understood that she could still love, pray, and give encouragement to those around her.

Her friends remained close throughout her illness. Chiara Lubich gave her the additional name Luce, meaning light, which became inseparable from her memory. As death approached, Chiara prepared the details of her funeral, choosing prayers and songs and asking to be dressed in white. She regarded her approaching encounter with Christ as a wedding feast. The preparations expressed the hope with which she faced death, sustained by the faith she had been learning to live since childhood.

Chiara died on October 7, 1990, just weeks before her nineteenth birthday. Shortly before her death, she encouraged her mother to be happy because she herself was happy. Hundreds of people, especially young people, attended her funeral. She had also consented to donating her corneas, which were transplanted into two recipients. Her concern for others continued through that final gift, following the generosity that had marked her childhood and adolescence.

On September 25, 2010, Chiara was beatified in Rome during the pontificate of Benedict XVI. Her feast day is October 29. Soon afterward, Benedict invited young people to learn about her, emphasizing both her faith and the support of her parents and friends. Her brief life offers a witness to redemptive suffering, lived through a personal effort to unite pain with Christ and continue loving others. The light associated with her name had become a source of encouragement far beyond Sassello.

For a devotional image of Luce, click here:Maryvale Catholic Press

Servant of God Michelle Duppong, a Missionary of Joy

Servant of God Michelle Duppong

Michelle Christine Duppong was born in 1984 and grew up on her family’s farm in Haymarsh, North Dakota. The fourth of six children, she helped with gardening, harvesting, and caring for sheep. Family life joined hard work with Catholic faith, preparing her for a vocation that would lead her to share the Gospel with others.

At North Dakota State University, Michelle studied horticulture and encountered the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, known as FOCUS. After graduating in 2006, she became a FOCUS missionary. For six years, she accompanied college students as they grew in faith, serving on four campuses, including the University of Mary. Those who knew her remembered her joy, generosity, and desire to help others develop a friendship with Jesus.

In 2012, Michelle became Director of Adult Faith Formation for the Diocese of Bismarck. She brought her missionary spirit to this work, helping organize opportunities for people to encounter Christ, including the diocese’s first Thirst Conference. Her mission now reached beyond college campuses into the wider Church.

On December 29, 2014, surgery revealed advanced cancer. The following year brought treatments, hospital stays, and severe pain. Michelle continued to pray for healing while entrusting herself to God. According to her family, she offered her suffering for others and remained attentive to the troubles of people around her, including hospital staff. Even during illness, her concern for souls continued.

Michelle died at home on Christmas Day, 2015, aged thirty-one. Her family gathered around her, singing, praying, and expressing their love.

On November 1, 2022, Bishop David Kagan formally opened her cause for beatification and canonization. She is known as Servant of God Michelle Duppong. Her life remains a witness to joyful discipleship and to the possibility of continuing to love and serve others through suffering.

For a devotional image of Servant of God Michelle, click here: Maryvale Catholic Press

Charlene Richard’s Offering

Servant of God Charlene Richard

In May 1959, twelve-year-old Charlene Richard read about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Afterward, she asked her grandmother whether she, too, could become a saint by praying like the Little Flower. Within a few months, her short life would end. But that simple question would remain part of her story.

Born on January 13, 1947, Charlene grew up in the rural Cajun community of Richard, Louisiana. She was the second oldest of ten children born to Joseph Elvin and Mary Alice Richard. Her mother remembered an active girl who enjoyed sports, attended church, and prayed her rosary. Faith belonged to the ordinary rhythm of her childhood.

That summer, Charlene was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia and admitted to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Lafayette. At her family’s request, Father Joseph Brennan, the newly ordained hospital chaplain, told her that she was going to die.

Father Brennan explained redemptive suffering, the Catholic understanding that suffering can be offered to God in union with Christ for others. Charlene accepted this teaching. Although her illness was painful, she remained cheerful and offered her suffering in prayer. The young priest returned to visit her daily, deeply moved by her faith.

During those final days, Charlene prayed for the healing of sick people and for others to enter the Catholic Church. Sister Theresita Crowley, the hospital’s director of pediatrics, also witnessed her peaceful acceptance and concern for others.

Charlene died on August 11, 1959. She was twelve. Father Brennan and Sister Theresita later reported healings and conversions among those for whom she had prayed. Her story spread, and visitors began coming to her grave to pray.

On January 11, 2020, the Diocese of Lafayette opened her cause for canonization, and Charlene received the title Servant of God. Her grave at Saint Edward Catholic Church remains a place of pilgrimage, where people remember a child who, even while dying, continued to pray for others.

For your own image of Servant of God Charlene Richard: Maryvale Catholic Press 

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, OCD, The Little Way of Love

St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Thérèse Martin was born in Alençon, France, on January 2, 1873, to Louis and Zélie Martin. Her childhood began in a household shaped by affection and Catholic faith, but sorrow came early. Her mother died on August 28, 1877, when Thérèse was four. Louis moved his family to Lisieux, where her father and older sisters cared for her. The loss left her deeply sensitive, and later separations from her sisters brought further suffering.

Thérèse later identified Christmas 1886 as a decisive turning point. Returning home after Midnight Mass, she overheard her tired father express impatience with a childhood Christmas custom she still enjoyed. Ordinarily, such a remark would have reduced her to tears. This time, she restrained them and joined the family cheerfully. In her autobiography, she attributed this change to Christ’s grace. She understood it as the beginning of greater courage and freedom to think of others before herself.

Her desire to become a Carmelite grew stronger. During a pilgrimage to Rome in November 1887, she boldly asked Pope Leo XIII to allow her to enter Carmel at fifteen. Permission eventually came through the Church authorities, and she entered the monastery of Lisieux on April 9, 1888. She made her religious profession on September 8, 1890. Known as Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, she committed herself to a life of prayer within the cloister.

Community life gave her daily opportunities to practice charity. She described one sister whose behavior irritated her in almost everything. Thérèse deliberately prayed for this sister, offered her help, and greeted her with a smile. Eventually, the sister asked what Thérèse found so attractive about her. The affection she experienced had grown from Thérèse’s effort to recognize Christ within her. Such encounters required patience, restraint, and the willingness to love when affection did not come naturally.

Through these experiences, Thérèse developed the spirituality known as her little way. She recognized her weakness and trusted that Jesus could lead her to holiness. She compared his arms to an elevator that would lift her where she could not climb by herself. This confidence encouraged her to offer ordinary duties and small sacrifices with love. Her teaching joined humble dependence on God’s grace with a determined effort to respond to that grace in daily life.

Her love reached beyond the monastery walls. She accompanied two missionaries through prayer and sacrifice, sharing in their work while remaining in Carmel. Reading Saint Paul’s teaching about the Church and charity helped her understand her own vocation. She could serve the whole Church through love. At the request of her superiors, she also began writing the recollections and spiritual reflections that would eventually become Story of a Soul. The hidden life she described would later reach readers across the world.

In 1896, tuberculosis began revealing itself through alarming symptoms. Around Easter, Thérèse also entered a painful trial of faith that continued until her death. Thoughts against the existence of heaven troubled her, and the consolation she had once experienced became difficult to find. She continued making acts of faith and praying for those who did not believe. Her confidence in God’s mercy endured through this darkness, giving her a deeper sense of solidarity with people struggling to believe.

Thérèse died on September 30, 1897, aged twenty four, after nine years in Carmel. Those attending her recorded her final words as an expression of love for God. In 1898, her autobiographical writings appeared as Story of a Soul. The account of her brief life spread widely, drawing readers toward her teaching about trust, charity, and surrender. The young woman whose ministry had unfolded within one monastery became a spiritual companion to people in many countries.

Pope Pius XI beatified Thérèse on April 29, 1923, and canonized her on May 17, 1925. In 1927, he proclaimed her patroness of the missions alongside Saint Francis Xavier. Saint John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church on October 19, 1997. Her feast day is October 1. Her life continues to invite Christians to trust Christ’s mercy and to seek holiness through the patient, faithful love required by the people and duties already before them.

For a devotional image of St. Thérèse, click here: Maryvale Catholic Press