Saint of the Week: Bakhita
2/12/2025
Josephine Margaret Bakhita (bah-KHEE-tuh) (c.1869 – 1947) was born in Olgossa, Darfur, Sudan. At age seven, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The experience so traumatized her that she was unable to even remember her birthname. Bakhita (“fortunate one”) is the name given her by the slave raiders who forcefully removed her from her family. Even before that, she witnessed that she experienced God in her heart without ever having been evangelized. “Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars,” she reflected, “Who could be the Master of these beautiful things? I felt a great desire to see him, to know him and to pay him homage.” Since the late 19th century, western and southern Sudan has been plagued by groups of armed slave traders preying on vast rural areas of Sudan, Chad, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. Enslaved for 12 years, Bakhita endured untold hardship and suffering. Resold several times, 1883 she was sold to Italy’s consul general in Khartoum, Sudan. He, in turn, gave her to a friend, Augusto Michieli, with whom she relocated to Italy as the nanny for Agosto’s young daughter, Mimmina. Accompanying the girl to Venice’s Institute of Catechumens, Josephine found herself drawn to Christianity. She was subsequently baptized as Josephine in 1890. Past hardships in her life made it hard for Josephine to easily express her feelings, especially the joy she now felt. But she often expressed that joy for the salvation she felt through Christ at the font where she was baptized, kissing it and saying: “Here I became one of the daughters of God!” Josephine entered religious life six years later as a Canossian Daughter of Charity. In 1902, she went to Schio, a town northeast of Verona. There, she served her religious community, becoming well loved by the locals, especially the children who attended the sisters’ school as well as the local citizens. By the end of her life in 1947, she was known throughout Italy for her loving, spiritual wisdom. Josephine knew the reality of being a slave, an immigrant, and a traveler on a special God Journey. Even today, countless men, women, and children continue to be victimized and trafficked into slavery by the Janjaweed and other human traffickers. Josephine serves as an inspiration to those of us who work to free such victims from oppression and violence, hoping to restore basic human rights and a sense of dignity to their lives. Josephine was not simply a model of resistance but also reminds us of our obligation to promote human dignity and combat the evil and injustice of human trafficking worldwide. Pope John Paul II beatified her on 17 May 1992 and canonized her as a saint at Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome on 1 October 2000. She is the first Black woman to be canonized in the modern era and is he only Sudanese ever to be so.
