Saint Josephine Bakhita

Bakhita was born around 1869 in the village of Olgossa in Darfur, in what is now western Sudan. She belonged to the Daju people. Her father was the brother of the village chief, and she grew up among three brothers and three sisters in what she later remembered as a happy and carefree home. Her older sister had already been taken by slave traders when, in 1877, Bakhita was seized at the age of seven or eight.

She was made to walk barefoot for hundreds of miles toward El Obeid and was sold several times along the way. The shock of the capture was so great that she forgot her own name. The slavers called her Bakhita, Arabic for "fortunate," and the name stayed with her for life. Over about twelve years she passed through several masters. Some beat her, and one household marked her body with cuts in the traditional Sudanese pattern of scarring, in a painful ritual she remembered as the most terrifying of all. In 1882, at Khartoum, the Italian consul Callisto Legnani bought her. He was a kind man who did not strike or punish her.

In 1885 Legnani returned to Italy and took her with him. At Genoa she was given to the family of Augusto Michieli, a friend of his, and became nanny to their daughter, Mimmina. When the Michielis moved to the Red Sea, Bakhita stayed with the girl at the Canossian sisters' house in Venice. There she first learned about Jesus, Mary, and the saints, and she chose to become a Catholic. When her former owners tried to keep her, the cardinal of Venice appealed to the king's prosecutor, and on 29 September 1889 she was declared a free Italian citizen. She was baptized on 9 January 1890 and took the name Giuseppina.

In 1893, after a long period of reflection, she decided to become a Canossian sister, and she was sent to Schio, near Vicenza, in 1896. There she spent the rest of her life, about fifty years, in humble work at the convent. At first people were afraid of her dark skin. Over time her kindness and faith won them over, and they called her "Sister Moretta" and loved her. She died at Schio on 8 February 1947.

Pope John Paul II beatified her on 17 May 1992 and canonized her on 1 October 2000. She was the first Black woman canonized in the modern era. In 2017 the town of Schio made her an honorary citizen. She is remembered as a woman who lost her name, her family, and her freedom, and who gave the rest of her life to those around her.

Saint Josephine Bakhita, pray for us.