Prayer of offering one’s own suffering – Blessed Chiara Luce Badano
Father, if this is Your will, I am ready.
If You want it, I want it.
For You, Jesus.
Because I love You.
The prayer of offering one’s own suffering by Blessed Chiara Luce Badano represents one of the peaks of contemporary youth mysticism. This short but intense invocation was not born from academic reflection or a treatise on ascetic theology, but gushed directly from the hospital bed of a girl of just eighteen, struck by an aggressive osteosarcoma that would lead her to death in 1990. Chiara Luce, an active member of the Focolare Movement founded by Chiara Lubich, lived her illness not as a blind condemnation, but as the final and definitive act of spousal love towards her Lord.
From a theological point of view, this prayer fits into the noble tradition of Christian compassion and active participation in the passion of Christ, according to the Pauline concept of “filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ” (Colossians 1:24). The structure of the prayer follows the trusting abandonment of Jesus in Gethsemane (“Not my will, but yours be done”), transforming physical and moral pain into a channel of grace and redemption. There is no trace of passive resignation, but rather a lucid and loving act of will: “If You want it, I want it,” a phrase that overturns suffering by transforming it into a sacrificial offering.
One of the most touching curiosities related to this period of the Blessed’s life concerns her nickname. It was Chiara Lubich herself who called her “Chiara Luce” (Claire Light), sensing the radiance of her spirit even in the deepest darkness of her illness. When the pain became so excruciating that it prevented her from even praying with traditional words, Chiara would incessantly repeat this aspiration. The power of this prayer lies in its extreme brevity: a few words that encapsulate the meaning of an entire existence spent for God and for others, demonstrating that holiness is not a goal reserved for a chosen few in adulthood, but a path that can be traveled even in youth and during the hardest trials.
