Virgin, Canossian sister, once a slave · Feast: 8 February
Open in the Daily Word app“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
Bakhita was born around 1869 at Olgossa in Darfur, in present-day Sudan. When she was still a child, perhaps seven to nine years old, she was kidnapped by slave traders. The shock made her forget the name her parents had given her. Her captors called her Bakhita, an Arabic word meaning fortunate. She was sold and resold at the markets of El Obeid and Khartoum, and some of her owners treated her with great cruelty. One had her body cut with a razor and salt rubbed into the wounds, which left more than a hundred scars.
In 1883 the Italian consul at Khartoum, Callisto Legnani, bought her and treated her kindly. When he returned to Italy in 1885 she begged to go with him. In Italy she was given to the family of Augusto Michieli and became nursemaid to their small daughter, Mimmina. When Signora Michieli went to Sudan to join her husband in his business there, Bakhita and the child were entrusted to the Canossian Sisters in Venice, where she began to learn about the God she had sensed from her childhood.
When Signora Michieli came back to take her away, Bakhita, with great courage, refused to go. The case went to a court in Venice, and on 29 November 1889 it ruled that since slavery was not recognised in Italy, she had the right to decide for herself. She stayed with the Sisters, and on 9 January 1890 she received Baptism, Confirmation and First Communion from the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, Domenico Agostini, taking the names Josephine Margaret Fortunata. In 1893 she entered the Canossian novitiate, and she made her vows on 8 December 1896.
From 1902 she lived in the convent at Schio, near Vicenza, where for over forty years she served as cook, sacristan, seamstress and doorkeeper. The townspeople loved her gentleness and called her their Moretta, the little brown sister. She told her story for the mission work of her congregation, and she died at Schio on 8 February 1947. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1992 and canonised her on 1 October 2000. Pope Benedict XVI presented her as a witness of hope in his encyclical Spe Salvi, and since 2015 her feast has been a day of prayer and reflection against human trafficking.
She found out that she had a Master who loved her, not one who owned her.
Before the court she stood up for her right to stay with God.
A former slave served for decades as cook and doorkeeper and was at peace.
She came to pray for those who had hurt her.
Bakhita later said that as a child she looked at the sun, moon and stars and wondered who their Master was. She felt a great desire to see him and to honour him, long before anyone told her about God.
In Benedict XVI's account in Spe Salvi, Bakhita had known many masters, cruel ones and kind ones. Then in Venice she heard of a master above all masters, the Lord who loved her and had suffered too. In the Venetian dialect she called him her Paron, her Master.
Sisters who nursed her at the end said that in her last illness, her mind going back to the slave days, she asked them to loosen the chains, because they were heavy. Then, it is reported, she said that she was very happy and that Our Lady had come.
If I were to meet those slave traders who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands; for if those things had not happened, I would not be a Christian and a religious today.
St Josephine Bakhita, reported words, in substance
I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me, I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.
Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi 3, describing her faith, in substance
A slave who found the true Master (Galatians 5:1).
Whatever happens to me, this Love awaits me.
Her feast is a day of prayer against human trafficking.
Dear friends, St Josephine Bakhita did not even remember the name her parents gave her. The name she carried was given by men who stole her as a child, and it meant fortunate. For years she was bought and sold, beaten and cut. If anyone had the right to believe that life had no meaning and that no one cared, it was she.
Yet in Venice she heard of a Master unlike all others: God, who knew her and loved her, and whose Son had also been beaten. Pope Benedict XVI writes that this changed her life. She knew she was definitively loved, and that whatever happened, this Love was waiting for her. St Paul says: For freedom Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). Long before the court in Venice ruled on her case, she was learning who truly owned her heart.
Bakhita asks us two questions. The first is about hope: do we live as people who know that they are loved? Many of us have everything and yet feel lost. The second is about our neighbour. Millions of people today are trafficked, forced into labour or the sex trade, or held as domestic workers with no rights. Some are close to us, in our cities and even in our homes. Let us see them. Let us pay fair wages and treat with respect those who work for us.
For more than forty years she cooked, sewed, and opened the convent door with a smile, and she was content. She even came to pray for those who had enslaved her. At this Holy Mass / Holy Qurbana, let us thank God for her, and pray for all who are enslaved today, that they may find rescue, and that we may become their defenders. Amen.
God of mercy, you led St Josephine Bakhita from slavery to the dignity of a daughter of God. Through her prayers, break the chains of all who are trafficked and abused, give us courage to defend them, and teach us to trust in your love. Amen.