Jubilee of Consolation

The Jubilee of Consolation is being marked on 15th September 2025.

All those who are experiencing a time of pain and affliction, due to illness, bereavement, violence or abuse, are especially invited to this jubilee event, together with their families and friends. 

The recent canonisations of Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis bring to mind the life of another young person who lived her Catholic faith to an heroic extent, Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano. In the story of her life and of her illness there are countless moments that might be characterised as being acts of consolation. In some instances these moments are offered by Chiara to people she encounters; in others they are offered to her by her friends, particularly those in the Focolare. The following stories are told in Michele Zanzucchi's account of Chiara's life (I have an early French language edition - I think there is an updated English edition available). The first occurs during a hospital stay early in the course of Chiara's illness; the second occurs during a hospital stay during what was Chiara's last Christmas before she died. 

Her father, Ruggero, says: "At the hospital Pietra Ligura, despite the suffering and the fever, she did not stop. She concerned herself with a young girl suffering from depression in the next room. She accompanied her everywhere, for very long walks in the corridors, even if she needed to rest. Before our suggestions to take more care, she replied: 'I will have plenty of time to sleep later'."

[That day], a hospital volunteer fell into a deep existential crisis: how can a God exist if in this hospital children are dying of cancer? While Maria Teresa [Chiara's mother] went down to the bar, this woman sat with Chiara. I do not know what they said to each other, but this woman confirmed, having recovered all her courage, that this Christmas was the most beautiful of her life. "For us too, it was the same thing", insists Ruggero. 

The Bull of  Indiction for the Jubilee 2025 includes the following paragraphs:

Signs of hope should also be shown to the sick, at home or in hospital. Their sufferings can be allayed by the closeness and affection of those who visit them. Works of mercy are also works of hope that give rise to immense gratitude. Gratitude should likewise be shown to all those healthcare workers who, often in precarious conditions, carry out their mission with constant care and concern for the sick and for those who are most vulnerable.

Inclusive attention should also be given to all those in particularly difficult situations, who experience their own weaknesses and limitations, especially those affected by illnesses or disabilities that severely restrict their personal independence and freedom. Care given to them is a hymn to human dignity, a song of hope that calls for the choral participation of society as a whole.

Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers

 The days 5th-6th April 2025 are being marked by the celebration of the Jubilee for the Sick and Health Care Workers. One feature of these days is an evening conference dedicated to considering how palliative care can bring hope to patients who are terminally ill and to their families, hosted by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross: Hospice=Hope. This report at the Jubilee 2025 website includes an account of a wide range of events that will be taking place across Rome during the Jubilee addressing such issues as the encouragement of blood donation, promoting awareness of issues around addiction and including moments of prayer and Eucharistic adoration: 20 000 people flock to Rome for Jubilee of the Sick and the World of Healthcare.

To reflect on this Jubilee we can take two motifs, one from Pope St John Paul II speaking to the sick in Lourdes in 1983, and the second from the opening words of Pope Francis' message for the World Day of the Sick in 2023:

Before all suffering, those in good health have a first duty: that of respect, sometimes even of silence.... Neither fair, nor unfair, suffering remains, despite partial explanations, difficult to understand and difficult to accept, even for those who have faith.

Illness is part of our human condition. Yet, if illness is experienced in isolation and abandonment, unaccompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhumane.

 When we look at the experience of illness in the life of Blessed Chiara Badano (known in the Focolare by the name "Luce", light), we can see something of both of these motifs. What we can also see is that accompaniment works in two directions: not only did Chiara's parents accompany Chiara in her illness but, in a very real sense, Chiara accompanied them during that time. It was an experience that they lived together. The two most remarkable aspects of Chiara's last weeks of life were, firstly, the extent to which, though unable to leave her bed, she kept in touch with friends from the Focolare movement; and, secondly, her refusal of morphine so that she could remain lucid and offer her suffering to Jesus, as she had no more than that to offer. Chiara exemplifies the three "small lights" - knowledge of the situation, acceptance and oblation - that Pope St John Paul II speaks of during his address to the sick in Lourdes. A full account of Chiara's life can be found here: Chiara Luce Badano - a radiant life. My own earlier posts about Chiara can be found here: Chiara Luce Badano.

Few of us will live the charism of an ecclesial movement with the depth and to the extent that Chiara Badano was able to do. The way in which she lived the time of her illness manifests a formation in that charism that, when her illness occurred, meant that she was able to live it to a heroic extent. 

Professor Jerome Lejeune provides us with a testimony of life of a doctor whose approach to his patients (and their parents) was one of profound respect. His daughter gives an account of the experience typical of families that sought his care when a new born had been diagnosed with Downs Syndrome, with the observation that it was a story they had heard countless times (Clara Lejeune, Life is a Blessing, p.35):

.. we went off to see this famous professor in a big hospital in Paris. It was both intimidating and reassuring. At the same time we thought to ourselves that it was no use. After all, the child's life was ruined.

The professor greeted us with a smile. He was courteous, friendly, but respectful. He turned to the baby, asked his name, and said to him, "Little Pierre, will you come with me?". He took him in his arms, asked the mother to put on a hospital gown, and offered her a seat. She sat down; he put little Pierre in her arms, sat down across from her and the father, and with a stethoscope examined the  child on his mother's lap. For us these simple gestures were like a revelation. It wasn't a patient this doctor was examining; it was our child.

Then he explained everything. What this illness is, what the future will be for the child and for us. He reassured us, responded to all our questions and fears.

Before leaving us he said to us, "If you wish, for your next appointment bring his older sister along. They, too, have the right to know and to understand." We left with our baby, all of us much calmer. He helped us to discover our love as parents.

In the Bull of Indiction (n.11) for the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis identified the sick as being among those to whom a particular sign of hope should be shown in the Jubilee year:

 Signs of hope should also be shown to the sick, at home or in hospital. Their sufferings can be allayed by the closeness and affection of those who visit them. Works of mercy are also works of hope that give rise to immense gratitude. Gratitude should likewise be shown to all those healthcare workers who, often in precarious conditions, carry out their mission with constant care and concern for the sick and for those who are most vulnerable.

Inclusive attention should also be given to all those in particularly difficult situations, who experience their own weaknesses and limitations, especially those affected by illnesses or disabilities that severely restrict their personal independence and freedom. Care given to them is a hymn to human dignity, a song of hope that calls for the choral participation of society as a whole.

Blessed Chiara Badano

In September 2010, Chiara "Luce" Badano was beatified. Something of her significance for young people of our times can be found here and in this report of a presentation of her life that was offered as part of the cultural programme of the 2011 World Youth Day in Madrid.

Magnificat published the following short account of Chiara Badano's life, under the heading "Saints of Today and Yesterday", for Saturday 8th October. One detail of this account appears to differ from other sources, that is, the description of the initial pain of Chiara's illness being felt in the spine rather than, as other accounts suggest, in the shoulder.

As a child, Chiara Badano, of Savona, Italy, imbibed from her mother a deep love for Jesus and Mary. At the age of nine, she learned of the Focolare apostolate, of which she became a devoted member. Chiara was sixteen when as she was playing tennis she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her spine. It proved to be the first sign of bone cancer. As she underwent a gruelling series of medical treatments, she suffered without complaint. Chiara developed a special devotion to Christ in the mystery of the abandonment he experienced in his passion. During her illness, she spent hours conversing with her mother about her faith. Chiara also experienced the higher states of prayer, finding it difficult afterward to descend "from the heights where I spend my days, and where all is silence and contemplation". She was repeatedly heard to pray in her sufferings, "If you will it, Jesus, I will it too". When on her deathbed a priest brought her Viaticum, she saluted the Blessed Sacrament with the words, "Come, Lord Jesus". Having spoken of Christ as her Spouse, Chiara, nineteen at her death on 7th October 1990, was buried in a wedding gown as she had requested.

The first paragraph of the "Day by Day" meditation for today, Sunday, is then taken from the writings of St Catherine of Siena, and has a happy coincidence of theme:

I Caterina, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, am writing to you in his precious blood. I long to see you clothed in the wedding garment without which I know we cannot please our Creator or have a place at the wedding feast of everlasting life. So I want you to dress up, and to make that more possible, I want you to take off all your selfish ... love.

Chiara "Luce" Badano: the other beatification

While John Henry Newman will be beatified in Birmingham on 19th September, there will be another beatification on 25th September, that of Chiara Badano.

This article gives an idea of the life of Chiara and the significance of her beatification: Generation X gets a "blessed".

Miracles and heroic virtues

A series of recent decrees of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints caught media headlines because they included the recognition of the herioc virtues of Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II. A report of the approval of the decrees by Pope Benedict XVI can be found here, and the Vatican news service report in Italian here.

But there are some other interesting decrees among the "small print", so to speak. Of interest to Catholics in England is the recognition of the heroic virtues of Sr Mary Ward, foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and institute now known as the Congregation of Jesus. Corrections in the comments box if my memory is wrong, but this is, I think, an order whose spiritual roots are alongside those of the Society of Jesus.

Also among the decrees is the recognition of the martyrdom of Fr Jerzy Popieluszko. This absolves Fr Jerzy from the miracle needed for beatification; but, given the dimensions of his murder that might be considered political, it is significant to see that he has been recognised as a martyr. Archbishop Oscar Romero can be thought of as a martyr in very much the same way as Fr Popieluszko, though he acted in the context of a regime that would be considered "on the right" where Fr Popieluszko acted in the context of a regime "of the left".

Another decree recognises a miracle attributed to the intercession of Chiara "Luce" Badano, a young member of the Focolare. This opens the way to her beatification only twenty years after her death.

I would like, however, to reflect on the idea of "heroic virtue". The careful enquiry into the life and work of a candidate for sainthood is what one might call a necessary, but not sufficient, step to canonisation. If this enquiry does not result in a positive outcome, the cause is not pursued further. If it idoes achieve a positive outcome, due study is then made to verify a miracle due to the intercession of the person concerned. All of this is to demonstrate that the person is in heaven, and able to intercede effectively before the Father on our behalf.

I sometimes wonder whether those who are subsequently canonised really felt that they were doing anything heroic, or whether they just felt they were doing simply what would have been expected of anyone in their situation. One thinks in comparison of this interview with Able Seaman Kate Nesbitt, who recently was awarded the Military Cross for bravery. There are people who will almost certainly never be canonised but who nevertheless carry out acts of human charity that are heroic, they themselves though thinking of them as something quite ordinary and what anyone else would do in their situation.

Like the gentleman of about 80 years who, every day almost without exception, and for two or three hours, visits his wife in a nursing home. His wife has been seriously disabled by strokes, and does not communicate.

And children who spend time looking after and being with their parents as they grow older, particularly at times when their parents are ill.

Or those who remain faithful as a family member suffers from addiction.

These are people who are worth blogging about.

[See also Saint News at the Hermeneutic of Continuity.]

World Day for the Sick: Chiara Luce Badano

I am posting the following testimony with an eye to the World Day for the Sick on 11th February. Chiara Badano was a teenager active in the Focolare movement in her home town, near Turin. Some of the dialogue in this testimony reflects the spirituality of the Focolare.

One of the customs in the Focolare is that, when a person makes a commitment in the movement, they receive a new name from the President of the movement (Chiara Lubich), the name being chosen to reflect the particular character or charism of the individual concerned. During her illness, Chiara Badano was given the name "Luce"("light"). This was because of the reputation of her smile, which seemed to be maintained throughout her illness.

Chiara died of a particularly painful form of cancer in 1990, aged just eighteen. Two days before Christmas, Chiara was taken into hospital for an emergency blood transfusion. This is how her mother tells the story of Chiara’s last Christmas.

“She had prepared presents for the family and her friends. But the white blood cell count fell rapidly and her fever returned. On the telephone, her doctor asked questions urgently, and wanted to know how long it would take to reach the hospital in Turin. The ambulance was there, but Chiara did not want to go: ‘I do not want to spend Christmas in hospital,’ she said; ‘If I am going to die, Jesus, I want it to be at home’.

“I whispered in her ear that it was the will of God to go to the hospital. She accepted, but did not say one word during the journey, she suffered terribly. At the door of the hospital the doctors…were already waiting for the blood transfusion.

“The following day, Christmas eve, I said to her when I came in to her room: ‘Here is every one with Christmas presents in their arms, but no-one looks you in the eye, no-one says good morning. Jesus is very near and no-one sees him.’ After she had overcome a moment of difficulty, I continued: ‘Let us light the fire of Jesus among us, which warms the whole world. You must light it because my heart is giving little heat.’ She replied: ‘Let us do it together, mother’.

“That afternoon, the Archbishop of Turin visited the hospital. He noticed the look on Chiara’s face. He came in to her room and asked her: ‘You have a wonderful light in
your eyes. How do you do it?’ After a moment of shyness, she replied: ‘I try to love Jesus’.

“The same day, one of the hospital volunteers was suffering a crisis of faith from seeing so many children in the hospital dying of cancer. While I went down to the bar for a drink, she sat with Chiara. I do not know what they said to each other, but this lady affirmed, having recovered all her courage, that this Christmas was the most
beautiful of her life. For us, too, it was the same thing.”

[my own translation, from Michel Zanzucchi Un sourire de paradis p.56-58.]