A disciple of Saint Luigi Guanella, Chiara combined intense prayer with effective educational action.
È  fundamental stone of Guanellian works

by Don Gabriele Cantaluppi

LThe girls were waiting for their catechism lesson and hoped to be assigned to Sister Chiara's class. They wanted it because her good spirit knew how to attract; she was welcoming and serene in understanding their problems and when they saw her they ran towards her joyfully.  Prayers, songs, moments of play or the preparation of theatrical performances enlivened the days in his company.

Candida Morelli, her companion in the summer of 1871, remembers that even the little ones who were sometimes entrusted to her were won over by her sweet and patient ways. She knew how to attract their sympathy by telling funny stories, sometimes offering some gift, generally sacred images, with which she won their affection. However, she was careful of the danger of her sympathies or excessive sensitivity: they were all dear to her and she gave herself to all of them, forgetting herself. Returning to their families, her girls expressed their enthusiasm, talking about the time spent with her, the teachings they received and the various commitments she gave them.

The day when, at the age of twenty, she wore the religious habit, she asked the Lord to always be eager to do good to everyone, as she had desired since she was a child. Born in Pianello del Lario, on the shores of Lake Como, on 27 May 1858, the youngest of eleven siblings and baptized with the name Dina, she was sent as a child to work in the silk mill owned by her father. However, her frail constitution convinced her family to direct her towards studies and for about six years she was welcomed among the Canossian nuns of the nearby town of Gravedona. She would also have liked to join them with religious vows but, perhaps due to her shy and introverted character, they did not consider her suitable for a life of apostolic commitment.

Returning to Pianello, she joined the Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary promoted by the parish priest Don Carlo Coppini, taking, according to the customs of the time, the name of Chiara.  In 1881 Don Luigi Guanella, who succeeded Don Coppini, gradually assumed the leadership of the small group, until it became the Congregation of the Daughters of Santa Maria della Provvidenza. In 1886 Chiara was transferred to the house opened by Don Guanella in Como, to dedicate herself to poor elderly people and young workers. Consumed by fatigue and tuberculosis, she died on 20 April 1887.

Don Luigi Guanella defined it as "his true legacy" because he knew how to live, despite the brevity of his existence, the Guanellian charism of charity, expressed in the words: "Praying and suffering".

Not that he was far-fetched: when it was necessary to correct he knew how to do it with amiability and determination, overcoming his shy nature. One of the girls, Gervasa, had responded harshly to a rebuke from her. Sister Chiara lowered her eyes and was silent. That silence, the girl herself confessed, was worth more than a long speech. Don Bosco also taught that "in certain very serious moments, a recommendation to God, an act of humility towards him, is more useful than a storm of words". 

If she was understanding of the weaknesses linked to the age of the boarders, she was however determined when faced with some defect to be eradicated or some bad inclination, putting the guilty person in front of her responsibility and possibly giving a proportionate punishment, knowing how to then remove it when asked for forgiveness.

Even when in Como she was entrusted with older girls who were preparing for service in families, she had to suffer a lot from acts of indiscipline and irresponsibility.

Certainly the efforts were not always successful, so much so that he wrote to Don Guanella: «We have five girls here and they work and think as if they were fifty. We are all saddened and amazed for these daughters." One of her, named Marta, gave her a hard time for her independent and frivolous character, but she continued to take care of her. She recognized the difficulty in educating those girls as she would have liked, demonstrating that she possessed a fundamental skill for every educator: the humility to admit one's limitations and to ask for advice from those who are more experienced.

His educational line was the result of the training acquired during the years of study to obtain the master teacher's license, even if the sudden change in the directives of the school authority made the expectations of obtaining the official title in vain.

Considering his task as a real mission, he gave great importance to religious education, preceding with his life testimony and also implementing specific concrete methods: first of all attention to personal inclinations, to adapt every educational intervention to the various subjects. When entrusting some task she tried to prepare the soul of the chosen one to love what was asked of her. Because of this kindness, one of them testified, «we loved Sister Chiara like a mother. In correcting she knew how to use her grace on occasion, but also her strength, even though she was shy in character."

For her, being an educator was a manifestation of her mystical tendency, which pushed her to spend long hours in prayer and to experience the passion of Jesus in her spirit, even with the "gift of tears". In this way she led her students to participate in their own spiritual experience. One of them, Teresa, greatly distressed by her estrangement from her family, advised her to "put your heart in a small box and deliver it to the Heart of Jesus". 

Over a century later, these words of Pope Francis offer a quick summary of Blessed Bosatta as educator: «Education does not consist in filling the head with ideas, but in accompanying and encouraging young people on the path of human and spiritual growth, showing them how much friendship with the risen Jesus expands the heart and makes life more human."