Saint Who?
Saints Who Worked with Their Hands
Saint Josephine Bakhita
Religious († 1947) Feast: February 8
She was born in a village in southern Sudan and grew up with three brothers and two sisters. One day when she was nine years old, she was kidnapped by slave traders while walking in a field. She never saw her family again, and the trauma of separation caused her to forget her own name.
But the slave traders gave her a name: Bakhita, or “fortunate one.” Bakhita did not feel very fortunate as a slave, which is why she repeatedly tried to escape. Her fourth owner was particularly brutal and cut 114 tattoo marks in her skin as a random punishment. Finally, an Italian consul bought her, and she was brought to Italy, where she served as a nanny to a little girl. When the girl was sent to a school run by the Canossian Sisters, Bakhita was sent along. There she learned about the God who had loved her ever since her childhood in Africa, and, at the age of thirty-eight, she was baptized and became a child of God.
Bakhita decided to give her life to him as a Canossian religious sister, taking the name of Josephine and serving the community as a cook, seamstress, and porter. She inspired everyone around her as she described how, despite torture, chains, and family separation, she found freedom and peace in Jesus Christ.
Creator God, reveal yourself to us in nature
and in our trials.
