Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time: St. Josephine Bakhita

In today’s reading St. Paul speaks in his letter to the Christians of Corinth from a place of humility and lowliness: When I came to you, brothers and sisters….I did not come with powerful speech or wisdom. I only came with Jesus Christ, and thus I came in weakness, so that you might know that real power comes from God. On the liturgical calendar, a saint whose feast day falls on this weekend is a beautiful example of this understanding and mindset.

Mother Josephine Bakhita was born in Sudan in 1869, into a stable and loving family, one of seven children. She was kidnapped at age nine by Arab slave traders, who forced her to convert to Islam. Bakhita was not the name her parents had given her, but instead what her kidnappers called her, a word which ironically means “fortunate”. Over the course of 8 years, sold and resold 5 times in the markets of El Obeid and of Khartoum, she experienced great cruelty as a slave, both physical and mental.

The last time she was purchased was in 1883, by an Italian man who served as consul for his nation. It was the first time in her captivity that she was able to enjoy peace and tranquility. Two years later, when her owner was recalled back to Italy, Bakhita begged to go with him. Soon after arriving in Italy, she was entrusted to the care of an Italian family, the Michielis. She lived with them in their home near Venice for three years, serving as nanny to their newborn.

A few years later (Nov. 1888), it was decided that for business reasons, her new family would move to Sudan. Bakhita was left temporarily in the care of a community of women religious, the Canossian Sisters, while practical matters of the impending move were settled. When they came to reclaim her and take her to Africa, she refused to go. A standoff of sorts ensued, but finally the Italian court ruled that because slavery was illegal at the time of her captivity, Bakhita had never legally been a slave, and thus was considered free.

Living with the sisters, she came to know God. She said she had always experienced him within, but never knew who He was. “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...” In time, at age 20, she was baptized and was given a baptismal name, Josephine. She was often seen kissing the baptismal font and saying: “Here, I became a daughter of God!”

Roughly four years later she entered the novitiate of the Canossian Sisters. After making her solemn vows, she was assigned to a convent in Schio (about 100 miles northwest of Venice), where she would remain for the duration of her life. Sr. Josephine was once asked: "What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?" Without hesitation 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 years were marked by pain, sickness and a wheelchair, yet Sr. Josephine remained cheerful, accepting discomfort and difficulties. In her last hours, those at her bedside recalled her experiencing delusions, remembering herself as a slave and crying out, "The chains are too tight, loosen them a little, please!". Eventually regaining tranquility, Sr. Josephine died on the evening of February 8, 1947 (Feast day, February 8th).
As the cause for her canonization was in process, controversy emerged. Because of her forced conversion to Islam, then later choosing Christianity, it caused tension between the Christians and Muslims of Khartoum, Sudan. When she was beatified in May 1992, news of it was banned. Then, nine months later, Pope John Paul II visited Sudan, and facing all risks, surrounded by an immense crowd in the city’s Green Square, he solemnly honored Mother Josephine Bakhita on her native 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."

In October 2000, at her canonization in St. Peter’s Square, John Paul II said, “We find a shining advocate of genuine emancipation. The history of her life inspires (us) to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression and violence, and to return them to their dignity.”

There’s much to her life so beautifully embodies Christian virtue: Her strength and perseverance in the face of great hardships and mistreatment. Even more, in her, we see a model for forgiveness. For all the ways that our hearts remain enslaved to any pain that’s been inflicted upon us by others—and acknowledging the fact that while we’re called to forgive, it doesn’t always come easily or instantaneously—we must ask God, until our hearts are at last ready, to be freed, to be unshackled from the pain that would otherwise stifle true human freedom. St. Josephine Bakhita…pray for us!