Josephine Margaret Bakhita, F.D.C.C., (ca. 1869 – 8 February 1947) was a Sudanese-Italian Canossian religious sister active in Italy for 45 years, after having been a slave in Sudan. In 2000 she was declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

Early life [ edit ]

She was born around 1869 in Darfur (now in western Sudan) in the village of Olgossa, west of Nyala and close to Mount Agilerei.[1] She belonged to the prestigious Daju people;[2][3] her respected and reasonably prosperous father was brother of the village chief. She was surrounded by a loving family of three brothers and three sisters; as she says in her autobiography: "I lived a very happy and carefree life, without knowing what suffering (was)".[4]

Sometime between the age of seven to nine, probably in February 1877, she was seized by Arab slave traders, who had abducted her elder sister two years earlier. She was forced to walk barefoot about 960 kilometres (600 mi) to El Obeid and was sold and bought twice before she arrived there. Over the course of twelve years (1877–1889) she was sold three more times and then given away.

Bakhita was not the name she received from her parents at birth. It is said that the trauma of her abduction caused her to forget her own name; she took one given to her by the slavers, bakhita, Arabic for "lucky" or "fortunate".[5][6][7] She was also forcibly converted to Islam.[8]

Life as a slave [ edit ]

In El Obeid, Bakhita was bought by a rich Arab who used her as a maid for his two daughters. They liked her and treated her well. But after offending one of her owner's sons, possibly by breaking a vase, the son lashed and kicked her so severely that she spent more than a month unable to move from her straw bed. Her fourth owner was a Turkish general, and she had to serve his mother-in-law and his wife, who were cruel to their slaves. Bakhita says: "During all the years I stayed in that house, I do not recall a day that passed without some wound or other. When a wound from the whip began to heal, other blows would pour down on me."[9]

She says that the most terrifying of all of her memories there was when she (along with other slaves) was marked by a process resembling both scarification and tattooing, which was a traditional practice throughout Sudan.[10][11] As her mistress was watching her with a whip in her hand, a dish of white flour, a dish of salt and a razor were brought by a woman. She used the flour to draw patterns on her skin and 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 her breasts, belly and into her right arm.[12][13]

By the end of 1882, El Obeid came under the threat of an attack of Mahdist revolutionaries.[14] The Turkish general began making preparations to return to his homeland and sold his slaves. In 1883 Bakhita was bought in Khartoum by the Italian Vice Consul Callisto Legnani, who treated her kindly and did not beat or punish her.[15] Two years later, when Legnani himself had to return to Italy, Bakhita begged to go with him. By the end of 1884 they escaped from besieged Khartoum with a friend, Augusto Michieli. They travelled a risky 650-kilometre (400 mi) trip on camel back to Suakin, which was the largest port of Sudan. In March 1885 they left Suakin for Italy and arrived at the port of Genoa in April. They were met there by Augusto Michieli's wife Signora Maria Turina Michieli. Callisto Legnani gave ownership of Bakhita to Turina Michieli. Bakhita's new owners took her to their family villa at Zianigo, near Mirano, Veneto, about 25 km (16 mi) west of Venice.[10] She lived there for three years and became nanny to the Michieli's daughter Alice, known as Mimmina, born in February 1886. The Michielis brought Bakhita with them to the Sudan for nine months before returning to Italy.

Conversion to Catholicism and freedom [ edit ]

Suakin on the Red Sea was besieged but remained in Anglo-Egyptian hands. Augusto Michieli acquired a large hotel there and decided to sell his property in Italy and to move his family to Sudan permanently. Selling his house and lands took longer than expected. By the end of 1888, Signora Turina Michieli wanted to see her husband in Sudan even though land transactions were not finished. Since the villa in Zianigo was already sold, Bakhita and Mimmina needed a temporary place to stay while Turina went to Sudan without them. On the advice of their business agent Illuminato Cecchini, on 29 November 1888, Turina Michieli left them in the care of the Canossian Sisters in Venice. There, cared for and instructed by the Sisters, Bakhita encountered Christianity for the first time. Grateful to her teachers, she recalled, "Those holy mothers instructed me with heroic patience and introduced me to that God who from childhood I had felt in my heart without knowing who He was."[16]

When Mrs. Michieli returned to take her daughter and maid back to Suakin, Bakhita firmly refused to leave. For three days Mrs. Michieli tried to force the issue, finally appealing to the king's attorney general; while the superior of the Institute for baptismal candidates (catechumenate) that Bakhita attended contacted the cardinal of Venice about her protegeé's problem. On 29 November 1889 an Italian court ruled that because the British had induced Sudan to outlaw slavery before Bakhita's birth and because Italian law did not recognize slavery, Bakhita had never legally been a slave.[17] For the first time in her life, Bakhita found herself in control of her own destiny. She chose to remain with the Canossians.[18] On 9 January 1890 Bakhita was baptized with the names of Josephine Margaret and Fortunata (which is the Latin translation for the Arabic Bakhita). On the same day she was also confirmed and received Holy Communion from Archbishop Giuseppe Sarto, the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, the future Pope Pius X.[19]

Canossian Sister [ edit ]

Church of the Holy Family, Schio

On 7 December 1893 Josephine Bakhita entered the novitiate of the Canossian Sisters and on 8 December 1896 she took her vows, welcomed by Cardinal Sarto. In 1902 she was assigned to the Canossian convent at Schio, in the northern Italian province of Vicenza, where she spent the rest of her life. Her only extended time away was between 1935 and 1939, when she stayed at the Missionary Novitiate in Vimercate (Milan); mostly visiting other Canossian communities in Italy, talking about her experiences and helping to prepare young sisters for work in Africa.[19] A strong missionary drive animated her throughout her entire life - "her mind was always on God, and her heart in Africa".[20]

During her 42 years in Schio, Bakhita was employed as the cook, sacristan and portress (door keeper) and was in frequent contact with the local community. Her gentleness, calming voice, and ever-present smile became well known and Vicenzans still refer to her as Sor Moretta ("little brown sister") or Madre Moretta ("black mother"). Her special charisma and reputation for sanctity were noticed by her order; the first publication of her story (Storia Meravigliosa by Ida Zanolini) in 1931, made her famous throughout Italy.[2][21] During the Second World War (1939–1945) she shared the fears and hopes of the town people, who considered her a saint and felt protected by her mere presence. Bombs did not spare Schio, but the war passed without a single casualty.

Her last years were marked by pain and sickness. She used a wheelchair but she retained her cheerfulness, and if asked how she was, she would always smile and answer: "As the Master desires." In the extremity of her last hours her mind was driven back to the years of her slavery and she cried out: "The chains are too tight, loosen them a little, please!" After a while she came round again. Someone asked her, "How are you? Today is Saturday," probably hoping that this would cheer her because Saturday is the day of the week dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. Bakhita replied, "Yes, I am so happy: Our Lady ... Our Lady!" These were her last audible words.[22]

Bakhita died at 8:10 PM on 8 February 1947. For three days her body lay on display while thousands of people arrived to pay their respects. Her remains were transferred to the Church of the Holy Family of the Canossian convent of Schio in 1969.

Legacy and canonisation [ edit ]

A young student once asked Bakhita: "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".[23]

The petitions for her canonisation began immediately, and the process officially commenced by Pope John XXIII in 1959, only twelve years after her death. On 1 December 1978, Pope John Paul II declared Josephine Venerable, the first step towards canonisation. On 17 May 1992, she was declared Blessed and given February 8 as her feast day. On 1 October 2000, she was canonised as Saint Josephine Bakhita. She is venerated as a modern African saint, and as a statement against the brutal history of slavery. She has been adopted as the patron saint of Sudan and human trafficking survivors.

Bakhita's legacy is that transformation is possible through suffering. Her story of deliverance from physical slavery also symbolises all those who find meaning and inspiration in her life for their own deliverance from spiritual slavery.[24] In May 1992 news of her beatification was banned by Khartoum which Pope John Paul II then personally visited only nine months later.[25] On 10 February 1993, he 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."[26]

Pope Benedict XVI, on 30 November 2007, in the beginning of his second encyclical letter Spe Salvi (In Hope We Were Saved), relates her entire life story as an outstanding example of the Christian hope.[27]

Citations [ edit ]