Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Josephine Bakhita, the first Saint of Sudan and the first African woman to be raised to the honour of the altars without being a martyr, is cited as an example in Spe salvi the second encyclical written by Pope Benedict XVI. “ We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God. The example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time. I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope John Paul II” (n.3)
Biographical note
Josephine was born in 1869. She lived in Sudan with her parents, 3 brothers and 4 sisters at Olgossa, s small village in Darfur, close to Mount Agilerei. Josephine suffers the first time when men she calls “slave traders” - in actual fact members of Arab tribes who traded - abduct her elder sister: “I still remember - she says in 1910 - how my mother cried and how we all cried”. One day between 1876 and 1877 she suffers the same fate as her sister: she is abducted and taken far away. “I thought only of my family, I called mamma and papà, with unspeakable anguish in my heart, there was no one to hear me ”.
Taken to Khartoum, she was Arabised and given the name Bakhita (fortunate). The young slave girls forgot her original name and changed master five times between 1877 and 1883. The suffering of Josephine Bakhita is told in a brief tale written in 1910 in which she speaks of her vicissitudes until her conversion: frustrated, open wounds on which salt is rubbed, maltreated and oppressed. In 1883 she is bought by Italian consul agent Calisto Legnani, who buys her from he last owner, a Turkish general who has to leave Sudan and wants to rid himself of his slaves. With her new master she is happier: “This time I was really fortunate; because the new master was a good man and he treated me well […] I was not scolded or punished or beaten and had never enjoyed such peace and tranquillity”.
But in 1885 Legnani is forced to leave Sudan in due to the advance of the Mahdist revolution. Josephine convinces her master to take her with him. When they reach Genoa she is entrusted to the family of Augusto Michieli, in Zianigo, in the province of Venice. Michieli hsa a wife Turina and a daughter Mimmina. Josephine acts as a nanny to Mimmina. Between 1888 and 1889 the Michieli family, which has economic interests in Africa, decides to return to Sudan. Josephine goes with them for nine months and then returns to Italy with Mrs Michieli and her daughter.
The discovery of the faith
Bakhita and Mimmina are entrusted for a brief period to the Institute of Catecumene di Venezia, run by the Canossian nuns. Here Josephine beings to discover the faith: “Those holy Mothers- she said in 1910 - with heroic patience instructed me and led me to know God whom I had sensed in my heart since a child without knowing who he was ”.
When Signora Michieli returns to take them back to Africa, Bakhita refuses to go. She is sad to see little Mimmina leave, but she chooses to remain with the support of the Patriarch of Venice, , Domenico Agostini, and the King's procurator.
Bakhita begins a new life: on 9 January 1890, in Venice she receives Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist from Cardinal Domenico Agostini. On 7 December 1893 she enters the novitiate of the Daughters of Charity and in Verona on 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception she makes her temporary vows. In 1902 the is moved to Schio, and there for the first time in 1910, she tells her story. On 10 August 1927 she makes her perpetual vows in Venice. For the rest of her life she works hard in the institute where she lives. In Schio everyone called her the Madre moretta. She lives in humility but people love her and seek her. Already when she made her perpetual vows people spoke of her as a saint, and in 1931 a book on her live was printed in thousands of copies and translated in several languages.
Josephine Bakhita died on 8 February 1947 at the Canossian Institute at Schio. Immediately crowds came to pay homage to her.
On the way to the honour of the altars
The body of Mother Bakhita, according to testimony collected at the time, was still soft and warm when coffin was closed. In front of the body an unemployed family man prays for a job: he returns a few hours later to say he found work. Miracles begin to happen. In 1950, only three years after the death, the Canossian bulletin publishes 6 pages of names of people who received graces through the intercession of a Bakhita.
The ordinary beatification process takes place Vicenza between 1955 and 1957. The apostolic process is held in 1968-1969. In September 1969 the body of Bakhita is moved to the cemetery of the Institute of the Daughters of Charity where she lived.
John Paul II signs the decree for the heroic virtues of Josephine Bakhita on 1 December 1978 and the decree of beatification on 6 July 1991. On 17 May 1992 Josephine Bakhita is proclaimed Blessed and on 1 October 2000 in St Peter's Square she is canonised by John Paul II: she is Sudan's first Saint. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 30/11/2007; righe 63, parole 894)
