March 7, 2022 in Sassello
Even in distressed days like these, for us and for the world, it may happen that small lights come on to warm and lighten the darkness of the present moment.
For us members of the “Chiara Badano Foundation” this light radiated during these two days spent in Sassello with the Bishop of Acqui, Msgr. Luigi Testore, the President and Co-President of the Focolare Movement – Margaret Karram and Jesus Moràn. A constructive, serene, concrete, synergistic, truly fraternal encounter.
With her mother Maria Teresa as hostess, it was a new regenerating immersion in the world of our Chiara, in her places, in her history, in the purest roots of her way of being: in the small cemetery in front of her tomb, as in the alleys of the town, in her parish and at her house, and in her attic, where she ascended to Heaven on October 7, 1990. It was exactly there that we met this morning to celebrate a Mass that was both a moment of profound communion, and for all of us, a new beginning towards a future as demanding as it is full of precious new opportunities to be seized.
These twenty-four hours spent together have been, both a flyover of these years of work and endless problems, and a recharge for the new challenges that – each in his own role – will have to face. And we left each other happy, both for what was built together and for the extraordinary unity of intentions, but also with a great sense of responsibility in disseminating and preserving in the best way possible this immense heritage that is the figure of Chiara, especially for the youth, and even more for this troubled passage in the history of the world.
The future will tell us if we have been up to this task, but today more than ever we feel Chiara’s presence by our side to guide us. For this too, once more, we can only be grateful to her.
The Chiara Badano Foundation
