“The Cross Is Very Sweet”: The Astonishing Faith of Chiara Corbella Petrillo

How a 28-year-old woman transformed suffering into a luminous witness of love.

Most saints lived long ago, their stories softened by centuries. But sometimes a saint appears in our own age, wearing ordinary clothes, laughing at ordinary jokes, carrying ordinary fears, and suddenly their life becomes a brilliant, unsettling light.
One of those souls is Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo. Her story is not gentle comfort for the faint-hearted. It is a dare: to trust love where love costs the most.

Chiara met her future husband, Enrico, on a pilgrimage. Two young Catholics from Rome, full of hope, flawed like the rest of us, simply wanting to build a Christian family together. Yet what began as a simple love story soon became a radiant testimony.

They married in 2008. Not long after, they learned that their first child, little Maria, had severe malformations and would live only moments. Doctors suggested termination. Chiara and Enrico chose love instead. They carried Maria to term, held her, and accompanied her to heaven within minutes of her birth.

Their second child, Davide, was diagnosed with similar conditions. Again they chose life. Again they held a child they knew they would only have for minutes. Again they poured all the love they had into a tiny life that slipped immediately into eternity.
Most couples would have collapsed under such grief. But Chiara and Enrico remained rooted in something deeper than fear.

In 2010, Chiara became pregnant again, and this time the child was healthy. But Chiara was not. During the pregnancy she was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. Treatment might save her, but posed grave risk to her unborn son. She made a choice the modern world finds incomprehensible. She refused treatment until the baby was safely born. She called it love. The world might call it madness.

Her son, Francesco, arrived healthy. He was placed in the arms of a mother already losing her eyesight, her strength and her voice. Only then did she begin chemotherapy, but it was too late. The cancer had advanced beyond cure.

In the months that followed, Chiara’s body weakened dramatically, yet her joy grew almost startlingly bright. She was often in pain, often exhausted, yet she continued to smile, to pray and to reassure others. Her husband asked her once whether the suffering was too much. She answered with a sentence that is almost a flame: “Yes… the Cross is very sweet.”

She died on 13 June 2012 at the age of 28. She chose to wear her wedding dress as she passed from this life, not out of nostalgia, but as a sign of hope. She believed she was going to meet the Bridegroom. Her funeral, instead of being submerged in despair, was filled with a fierce, luminous joy. Those who were present felt they were witnessing something holy. Her cause for beatification is now underway.