St. Josephine Bakhita is a heroic saint who endured the horrors of slavery with bravery before she escaped into freedom through the group of religious sisters she joined.

Josephine was born around 1869 in Darfur (now part of western Sudan). Her family was part of the powerful Daju people (after whom Darfur is named). Her uncle was the leader of their village, and Josephine was surrounded by a loving, prosperous family during her early years.

When Josephine was eight, her life took a tragic turn when she was snatched by slave traders and brought to El Obeid, a large city in central Sudan.

She reported in her autobiography that the trauma of her abduction caused her to forget her own life. The traders gave her the ironic name Bakhita (from the Arabic word barak, meaning blessed), hoping her name suggesting good fortune and luck would attract potential buyers.

Bakhita, as she was now known, was bought by an Arab to be a chambermaid for his daughters. She was treated well until one of her owner’s sons broke into a rage and beat her so severely she was unable to walk for over a month.

Bakhita was sold to other owners who treated her with unspeakable, inhumane cruelty. In her autobiography, she recounts some of the horrendous customs of beating and scarring slaves.

In 1883, Bakhita was sold to a new, kinder owner—the Italian Consul to Sudan, Callisto Legnani. When he had to return to Italy, he brought Bakhita with him and gave her to the Michieli family. Bakhita was a faithful nanny to the Michieli family’s young daughter.

In the fall of 1888, Bakhita and her young charge went to stay with the Canossian Sisters in Venice while the rest of the family was away on business. While staying with the Canossians, Bakhita encountered Christianity the first time. The kind sisters instructed Bakhita in the Christian faith. When the Michieli family returned to bring back Bakhita to Sudan, Bakhita refused to go. The Michielis appealed to the courts, who upheld Bakhita’s freedom.

Shortly thereafter, Bakhita was baptized and received the new name of Josephine in 1890. Three years later, she entered the Canossian novitiate. After a life spent in being uprooted, Josephine was assigned to the Canossian convent in Schio and remained there for forty-two years, throughout all of World War II.

When asked later by one of her students what she would do if she met one of her captors or former owners, Josephine 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.”

Remarking on Josephine Bakhita’s remarkable love and forgiveness, Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Spe Salvi (“In Hope We Are Saved”), attributed Sr. Josephine’s hope and love to her hope in God’s love for her. St. Josephine knew that whatever happened to her, she would be, at the end of her life, greeted by the love who made her.

Immediately after her death on February 8, 1947, the people of Schio began to petition for the canonization of their beloved Madre Moretta or “little black mother.” On October 1, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized Josephine Bakhita; she has since become the patron saint of Sudan and of the victims of human trafficking.

St. Josephine Bakhita, whose love and hope transformed the wounds of slavery into forgiveness and freedom—pray for us!