The secret
of Sister Chiara
Sister Chiara's earthly existence is comprised in a very short parable of time, not even 29 years; in the Casa Divina Provvidenza in Como, where she was sent to start those charitable foundations that Don Guanella had dreamed of for many years and to which he had dedicated himself with all his strength, she would live "healthy" for only six months. The numbers are disconcerting: 29 years - 6 months... Yet Don Guanella is firmly convinced that Chiara's life is "precious" and constitutes the "fundamental stone" of all his work. One certainly perceives that it is necessary to look elsewhere for the roots of this existence which is so exemplary and in a certain sense paradigmatic for the Guanellian family. “The principle is said to be the foundation of things.
The letter F is the foundation of the Houses of Providence, repeated 4 times to mean hunger, cold, smoke, discomfort; this letter repeated like this 4 times with the soul willing to practice it according to faith and reason, constitutes the base of an inverted pyramidal stone which marks the letter V = victim... Fundamental stone of the Divine Providence House in Como, the life of Sister Chiara was a precious victim Bosatta.”
From these simple approaches we can deduce that Sister Chiara's life, short, is also a story of normality, if the story that counts is that of this land, of the great things of this time which then flows by grinding everything down: she left no trace in the sciences, politics, culture, art.
When God has started to do the math on Chiara's life, he will have found very little to count her merit: a short list of works of limited consistency, put together in those few years and in her little world; a few lines or pages of the great book in which everything is collected and on which the world will be judged.
But it will be very different if God takes into consideration the temperature of love reached by Chiara as she grows older. Chiara's success or rather the secret is elsewhere... it is holiness. This is the horizon in which her figure and her message are outlined and it is also the reason why the Founder always looked at her with delicate, discreet, but also lively admiration. We listen to him.
“One day, while giving a conference to the community, Don Luigi Guanella made this declaration: 'among you there is one who has reached the eighth degree of perfection'. And all those present said to each other: 'this is Sister Chiara'. […] Once Don Luigi Guanella, coming away from having visited Sister Chiara, speaking with me, expressed himself about her with these precise words: Sister Chiara is the true mouth of Jesus Christ”. (sister Marcellina Bosatta)
And yet:  
“So good was that dear soul who always saw God in everything! Sister Chiara was always an angel of innocence because he was always a martyr of penance. But more particularly, those who were able to follow her steps saw in her a mind as clear as a mirror, in which she looked at God and God made himself known to her [...] Sister Chiara said: - We are nothing but in the meantime God could also avail himself our -.
In his heart he had nothing and he had much... the finite and the infinite... everything great and everything minimal. She was a well-born soul, as all of her was filled with admirable delight and love! She was a moving machine and could not be slowed down: the habit of praying and toiling had become second nature to her. She could not be held back so as not to make her miss out on opportunities of merit [...] I can declare that in her there were like two forces: the omnipotent one of God, which attracted her in singular and admirable ways to himself, that of her who with all generosity of mind , with heart and body he took care to correspond to you. In these efforts to achieve perfection, I know that she never said enough, and she was never happy enough. In fact, quite the opposite!”. (Don Guanella)

And we, today,
in front of Sister Chiara?

One last question remains open: what about us, today, in front of Sister Chiara? The conclusion reached by the members of the Special Congress of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints seems enlightening to us: "The possible glorification of Chiara Bosatta will be able to offer the Christian people the model of a believing soul which, lost in God and in his love , lives in the deepest humility and associates with Christ in an ardent thirst for sacrifice and immolation, having nothing else in his mind and heart other than the will of God and the most total availability for the material needs of the humble, of the suffering, the derelict and the sinners."
In a world like the current one and like the one of all time, Sister Chiara's call reiterates, therefore, the need to know how to love unconditionally.
We could then ask ourselves: how is it possible to transform things and the world, working on the small and neglected everyday life? All this has a solid and precise foundation in Sister Chiara. it is her truest lesson and Sister Chiara's lesson is love: her great love was God. We too, therefore, must discover that the support of this life in the difficult everyday life lies in love.
True love for God pushed Sister Chiara towards goodness, holiness, recognizing herself as beneath everyone, indebted to everyone for concrete love: sweetness, gentleness, compassion. Here was born her pure love for her: knowing how to give everything without compensation, without receiving or desiring any compensation. If in our days both parts of the couple were committed to giving fully: how much would be the giving and how much the receiving of each!
But the love that comes from God is eternal, always young and always new like the infinite. The novelty of Chiara's love is based, in fact, on the youth of the heart, not worn out, not wasted; available to make room for those who come to knock on the door, especially if they are poor and needy, to welcome them with wonder, gratitude and generosity, to discover and enhance what is or is happening in those who have knocked.
In this regard, splendid and compelling is a page of the official biography "The story of Chiara" in which the brother Don Piero Pellegrini states: "Blessed Chiara had learned from Don Guanella to renew love every day in God who is the Father , every day generates life and every day renews his daily gift, divine love that nothing can lose and that gives everything, up to His Son. And it is the model of the incarnate and crucified Son that Chiara takes inspiration from: a love that welcomes with forgiveness and gentleness, sweetness, compassion, which sacrifices itself in the gift of self for the salvation of others, liberation from illness, from need, from evil, to be renewed every day by the mystery and gift of redemption. But here we enter into the extraordinary of the saints, when Chiara becomes a victim of her, and feels like a victim of her, with the pain and tears hidden in her heart and the smile on her face. The little things made her great until she sacrificed herself. How much need is there today for people who live their lives peacefully with commitment, ready to sacrifice? Sister Chiara teach.”
20 years have now passed since the day of the beatification and yet Sister Chiara's teaching appears attractive, current, alive and full of meaning.
The celebration of the anniversary of the beatification should not be just a historical memory nor simply a reason for external celebration, but rather arouse a strong nostalgia for holiness. Only under this condition will the question that the orphans asked Sister Chiara herself find a credible answer: So Sister Chiara will no longer return to us?
Sister Chiara will "return", in fact, to the extent that each of us falls in love with the ascent towards holiness and commits ourselves, without stopping, to the donation of our existence. The poor of the earth will feel welcomed, loved and the Risen Crucifix will illuminate the Paschal mystery that envelops every life given, to the end, in the heroism of love.
May it be the same for our life too.