After attending the beatification of Chiara Badano in Rome, teenagers and college students in Houston, Texas, took up the challenge to present her inspiring story to 200 others in Jones Hall at the University of St Thomas on Nov. 6.
The organizers were joined by students from the Teens for Unity Club at Incarnate Word Academy, a club inspired by the spirituality of unity of the Focolare Movement, who had closely followed the events surrounding her beatification.
In less than four weeks, the group put together a band and presented Chiara Badano's life through various artistic expressions, also showing parts of a documentary with interviews with Badano’s parents and friends. For the day itself, they were joined by other Texan youth who had gone to Rome for the events surrounding her beatification, an event that attracted 25,000 people from all over the world.
Chiara Badano was an Italian teenager and member of the Focolare Movement who died of bone cancer in 1990. During his recent apostolic trip to Sicily, in southern Italy, the Holy Father proposed her as a model of holiness for youth everywhere, inviting them to become more acquainted with her.
“Her life was brief, but carries a stupendous message … 19 years full of life and of faith,” said Pope Benedict XVI. “The last two years were full of suffering, but lived in the faith and in the joy that was born from her heart that was so full of God.”
A group of 18 teenagers and young adults from around Texas attended the beatification of the Blessed Chiara Luce Badano in Rome, Italy on Sept. 25.
The Mass, celebrated at the Shrine of Our Lady of Divine Love, by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Monsignor Angelo Amato, representing Pope Benedict XVI.
Chiara Luce's parents sat in the front row of the modern church, which was filled with modern music, befitting of a 20th-Century teenager on the road to sainthood.
"The Mass was beautiful," the Texas group wrote in a short message home.
Later that evening, the Texas group found themselves among 8,000 other participants inside Paul VI Hall in the Vatican for the two-hour "Life, Love, Light" celebration. Thousands more braved the rain in St. Peter Square to watch the songs, dances, testimonies and memorial videos on jumbotrons.
You can watch replays of both the Mass and the celebration or read transcripts at live.focolare.org.
The youth worked for months to raise money for the trip through bake sales, barbecue lunches, work, and more. They witnessed the power of God's providence first-hand, and would like to thank everyone who helped them experience this historic moment in the Movement and in the Church.
Arkansas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado
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