Saint Josephine Bakhita: Freedom and Hope
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”
-Matthew 12:28
Born to the Daju people in Darfur in Western Sudan around the year 1869, Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped and sold into slavery when she was between the ages of seven and nine. Eventually purchased by an Italian consul, she was taken to Italy where she was converted to Catholicism through her contact with the Canossian Daughters of Charity in Venice. She rarely spoke of her years of enslavement, but her sufferings were so extreme that she was plagued by horrific nightmares for the rest of her life and the trauma caused her to forget the name she had received from her parents. (Her adopted name, Bakhita, means “Lucky.”)
In 1893, having been baptized Giuseppina, she entered Cannosian Sisters, winning the esteem of many by her piety and charity. She spent the remaining 54 years of her life serving the community and its students in a number of assignments, including cook, sacristan, and housekeeper. Known for her gentleness, especially her smile, she was commonly referred to as the “Little Brown Sister” or “Black Mother” by people in the local community.
Josephine Bakhita died after an extended illness on February 8, 1947. Canonized in 2000, she is honored as the patron of Sudan and of enslaved peoples, as well as the victims and survivors of human trafficking. At her beatification in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1993, Pope Saint John Paul II proclaimed:
“Rejoice, all of Africa! Bakhita has come back to you. The daughter of Sudan, sold into slavery as a living piece of property, is free, free with the freedom of the saints.”
Today, February 8—the liturgical memorial of Saint Josephine Bakhita—is celebrated as the Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking.
“Forgiveness set her free. Forgiveness she first received through God’s merciful love, and then the forgiveness given, made her a free, joyful woman, capable of loving.”
-Pope Francis, General Audience (October 11, 2023)
Despite her extreme sufferings, Josephine Bakhita expressed gratitude for her experiences, because it was through them that she ultimately encountered Christ and began to have hope. This was not the enslaved person’s hope of having a kind master, but what Pope Benedict XVI called, the “great hope” (see Spe Salvi, 3-4). Realizing ultimate freedom, Josephine was able to declare,
“I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so, my life is good.”
The hope that was born in her redeemed her and enabled her to discover true and lasting freedom as a child of God who, in turn, passed that hope on to others.
O God, who led Saint Josephine Bakhita from abject slavery
to the dignity of being your daughter and a bride of Christ,
grant, we pray, that by her example
we may show constant love for the Lord Jesus crucified,
remaining steadfast in charity
and prompt to show compassion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Memorial of Saint Josephine Bakhita
