St. Josephine Bakhita
A Model of Forgiveness, Piety & Charity · Canonized 2000
Josephine Bakhita
Josephine Bakhita was a living example of Christian forgiveness, piety, and charity for all ages. She was born about 1869 in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, in a well-respected and loving family.
Sometime between the age of seven to nine, she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders, who had already kidnapped her elder sister two years earlier. She was cruelly forced to walk about 960 kilometres on her bare feet, sold and bought several times in the slave-markets of Khartoum and El-Obeid over the course of twelve years and treated very cruelly by owners. The trauma of her abduction caused her to forget her own name; it was the slavers who named her 'Bakhita', Arabic for lucky.
Finally an Italian official bought her and treated her kindly. He took her to Italy and gifted her to a family. Due to war and strife, the family left her in a Canossian convent where she decided to stay and serve God and His people all her life. In 1893, she entered the novitiate of the Canossian Sisters and on December 8, 1896, she pronounced her First Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience.
42 Years of Holiness
In 1902, she was assigned to the Canossian convent at Schio, in northern Italy, where she spent the rest of her life. During her 42 years at Schio, her humility, her simplicity and her constant smile won the hearts of everyone who knew her.
She was engaged in unassuming duties — as a portress welcoming little girls and their mothers, in the kitchen serving her sisters with attention and love, in needlework and embroidery, and as a Sacristan in the chapel. The townsfolk considered her a saint and felt protected by her mere presence.
Her sisters in the community esteemed her for her inalterable sweet nature, her exquisite goodness and her deep desire to make the Lord known. She became holy by doing every little thing with great love for God and for her neighbours.
"If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian today."
— St. Josephine Bakhita, in response to a student
A Universal Sister
Her final years were marked by pain and illness. In her last days, her mind wandered back to her years of slavery and she would cry out in agony recollecting the many traumatic incidents that had marked her life. Finally, she passed away with a smile and the name of Our Lady on her lips.
St. Bakhita was beatified in 1992 and canonized in the year 2000. She is revered around the world as a Saint and a "Universal Sister" — a beacon of forgiveness, resilience, and love that transcends all boundaries.