Category:Saint Josephine Bakhita

Saint Josephine Bakhita - Canossian Daughter of Charity Born: c. 1869 in Olgossa, Darfur, Sudan Died: 8 February 1947 in Schio, Veneto, Italy Honored in: Roman Catholic Church Beatified: 17 May 1992 by Pope John Paul II Canonized: 1 October 2000, Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome, by Pope John Paul II Feast: 8 February Patronage: Sudan

Saint Josephine Bakhita was a former slave who became a Roman Catholic Canossian nun in Italy, where she worked for 45 years.

She had grown up in a loving family, but was kidnapped between the age of seven and nine and made a slave. Due to the trauma of the most cruel behavior, she forgot her name and remembered only the one given to her by the Arab slave traders, bakhita, meaning lucky in Arabic. She was forced to convert to Islam.

She was treated kindly by a very rich Arab merchant who employed her as a maid of his two daughters until she offended one of his sons, who kicked her so hard, she was bedridden on her straw bed for over a month.

Then she was sold to a Turkish general. Bakhita had to serve his mother-in-law and his wife who both were very cruel to all their slaves. The most terrifying of all her memories there, was when she (along with other slaves) went through a process similar to that of tattooing and scarification (which is scratching, etching, burning, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification). A dish of white flour, a dish of salt and a razor were brought by a woman. The flour was used to draw patterns on her skin. Then she cut deeply along the lines before filling the wounds with salt to ensure permanent scarring. A total of 114 intricate patterns were cut into tender parts of her chest and belly, and into her right arm.

In 1883, Bakhita was bought by the Italian Vice Consul Callisto Legnani, who was a very kind man, who eventually gave her away as a present to Signora Maria Turina Michieli, who lived near Venice, Italy. On November 29, 1988, Signora Turina Michieli left Bakhita and her daughter in the custody of the Canossian Sisters in Venice while she traveled to Suakin, Sudan to meet her husband. When she came back Bakhita refused to go with her. On November 29, 1889 an Italian court ruled that, because Sudan had outlawed slavery before Bakhita's birth and, because, in any case, Italian law did not recognize slavery, Bakhita had never legally been a slave. Thereafter, Bakhita chose to stay with the Canossian Sisters.

On January 9, 1890, Bakhita was baptised with the names of Giuseppina Margherita and Fortunata (which in Arabic stands for Bakhita). She was also confirmed and received communion from the cardinal patriarch of Venice himself. On December 7, 1893, she entered the novitiate of the Canossian Sisters and on December 8, 1896, she professed her vows, welcomed by the future Pope Pius X.

She was always gentle and people felt they were protected when she was around. Once she was asked what she would do if she met those who kidnapped her and she responded, "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 and a religious today."

Her last audible words were: "Yes, I am so happy: Our Lady... Our Lady!" Bakhita died at 8:10 PM on February 8, 1947.

Beatification process December 1, 1978, Pope John Paul II declared Josephine Venerabilis May 17, 1992, she was declared Blessed and given February 8 as her feast day October 1, 2000, she was canonized and became Saint Josephine Bakhita.

She is the only Patron Saint of Sudan. The fact that she was forced to convert to Islam and later chose Catholicism denotes a conflict between Christianity and Islam.

May 1992 news of her beatification was banned Pope John Paul II personally visited Khartoum, Sudan, only nine months after her May 1992 beatification. Despite the banning of news of her beatification in Khartoum, on February 10, 1993, undaunted by the risks, surrounded by an immense crowd in the huge Green Square of the capital of Sudan, Pope John Paul II solemnly honoured Bakhita on her own soil. "Rejoice, all of Africa! Bakhita has come back to you. The daughter of Sudan sold into slavery as a living piece of merchandise and yet still free. Free with the freedom of the saints."

On November 30, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI, in the beginning of his second encyclical letter Spe Salvi (In Hope We Were Saved), relates Saint Josephine Bakhita's entire life story as an outstanding example of reason for hope.