The Reredos
Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita, F.D.C.C.
Mother Josephine Bakhita was born in Sudan in 1869. Born into slavery with a different name given to her by her parents, she was kidnapped and sold five different times in several markets. She had such a horrific experience as a slave, that she forgot the name her parents had given her. Her kidnappers gave her the name Bakhita, which means “fortunate.” One day while in Sudan, an Italian Consul purchased Bakhita so she could work for his family. Unlike her previous owners and kidnappers, the family respected Bakhita. The consul had to return to Italy, so Bakhita went to work for one of the consul’s family friends, whom also respected Bakhita as their worker. Eventually, that family also had to move. As a result, Bakhita moved in with the Canossian Sisters of the Institute of the Catechumens in Venice.
In living with the Canossian Sisters, Bakhita learned about God, whose presence she had felt since childhood when she wondered about nature and its creator.
Bakhita once said, “Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself: Who could be the Master of these beautiful things? And I felt a great desire to see him, to know Him and to pay Him homage.”Bakhita’s desire to know God was rooted on her wonderment for nature’s creation.
Bakhita received religious education while she lived with the sisters. She received the sacraments of initiation on January 9, 1890 and a new name: Josephine. When the family she had previously worked for returned to get Bakhita from the sisters, she asked to stay with the sisters because she had felt such a great freedom when she learned God. Since Bakhita did not want to leave the sisters, she took her case to court. She was declared free on the basis that Sudan had outlawed slavery before Bakhita was even born, meaning that her enslavement had always been illegal. Therefore, the Italian law ensured Bakhita’s right to stay with the sisters.
After much discernment, Bakhita became a sister for the Institute of St. Magdalene of Canossa on December 8, 1896, which she served for fifty years. Mother Josephine would serve in many ways in the convent, from housework to greeting school children every day. Her gentle, loving, and motherly nature inspired families and the sisters to also believe in Christ. People saw in Mother Josephine a prayerful witness of Christian love to all people. Her health deteriorated through time. Towards the end of her life, she remembered her experiences of slavery, begging the nurses to loosen the chains which once held her captive in slavery. In her final moments of life, Mother Josephine Bakhita called out to our Blessed Mother, saying, “Our Lady! Our Lady!” Mother Josephine Bakhita died on February 8, 1947.
In Bakhita’s diary, she says, “If I were to meet the slave traders who kidnapped me and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. If what happened to me had never take place, how would I become a Christian and religious?”
We see in Mother Bakhita a powerful Christian witness of love, forgiveness, and trust in Christ, our Savior. Bakhita was beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II on October 1, 2000. Mother Bakhita’s feast day is February 8th. His Holiness Pope Francis has asked that we pray for an end to slavery and human trafficking through her intercession. Bakhita is the patroness of Sudan and victims of human trafficking.