Former professional basketball player, Oriana Milazzo left everything to answer the Lord’s call. On June 28, she made her final vows in Alcamo, Sicily, becoming Sister Chiara Luce.
She will never be the same again. This Friday, June 28, 2024, Oriana Milazzo, former Serie A1 basketball player and member of the Italian U-18 and U-20 national teams, consecrated herself to the Lord under the name of Sister Chiara Luce.
Born in Sicily in 1991, Oriana shared her passion for basketball with her sister Ilaria, who would also become a professional player when she grew up. This irrepressible desire to put basketball at the center of her life would lead Oriana to Alcamo, where she would take her first sporting steps. There, her parents entrusted her to a group of Franciscan tertiaries, and it was thanks to this decision that she discovered the community of Poor Clares who attended the monastery church. Then came the move to Priolo, the debut in A1 and the call-up to the national team. However, “I was missing something, I felt a dissatisfaction within me,” she told the Italian media To come.
It was to fill this void that she decided to get more involved in her parish. She even entertained a crazy dream: that of becoming a missionary doctor. She began studying medicine with this in mind but remained unsatisfied. “In my heart began the questions to understand what my place in the world was for my own good,” she confided.
The World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid in 2011 was decisive for Oriana. It was during those few days of prayer and praise among young people that God’s plan for her became clear in her mind. After a period of discernment and formation, she decided to join the Poor Clares by returning to the monastery of Alcamo. “I felt like I was coming home,” she confesses. She will complete two years of postulancy and three years of novitiate before her temporary profession in 2019. This extraordinary and intense journey to one day be able to offer herself body and soul to Christ, she experienced with the help and encouragement of her family. Her parents “always supported her and made me feel loved.”
On June 28, it was under the name of “Sister Clare Light of Mary, dwelling place of the Holy Trinity”, a name inspired by Blessed Chiara “Luce” Badano and Saint Clare of Assisi, that Oriana pronounced her final vows. They were received by the abbess of the Poor Clares of Alcamo, Mother Virginia Formoso. Poverty, chastity, obedience: these are the new watchwords of Sister Chiara Luce who knew how to turn away from an ephemeral earthly glory to access the triumph of eternal life.
2024-06-29 22:50:38
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