This Thursday, February 8th, we celebrate the memorial of Saint Josephine Bakhita, an African woman who went from being a slave to becoming a nun and a saint. Born in the Sudan around 1869, she was sold into slavery when she was 12 and for the next twelve years was resold several times. Some of her owners abused and tortured her horribly.

Eventually she was taken to Italy and after a time ended up in the temporary custody of the Canossian Sisters in Venice. Here the nuns taught her about God and answered her many questions about the most important mysteries of life. Josephine received Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion in 1890 from the Cardinal Archbishop of Venice himself, known today as Saint Pope Pius X. She was also able to gain her freedom with the help of the sisters.

Josephine entered the Conossian Daughters of Charity as a novice in 1893 and made her final vows three years later. For 42 years she worked as a cook and doorkeeper and was known for her gentleness and charity. Her heroic love for God and her neighbor is shown by her stating that not only did she forgive those who enslaved and tortured her, but she would thank them because it was through these sufferings that she came to know Jesus and her great dignity as a daughter of God.

February 8th, St. Josephine’s Feast Day, has been declared by the Vatican an International Day of Prayer for the Victims of Human Trafficking. Slavery is a worse problem now than it ever has been. Let us ask this great saint to help us also to be instruments of the Love of God in overcoming evil.

–Fr. Peter