Bio

 

 Born in the Darfur region that is now Sudan, her family was part of the Daju people. Her family, three boys and four girls, were happy and prosperous since her father was brother of the village chief. In the year 1877, however, when she was about 7, she was kidnapped by slave traders and made to walk barefoot over 600 miles.

 

She was bought and sold twice during the journey, and given the name “Bakhita” by her captors, which, cruelly, means “fortunate”. She was tortured and tormented in so many ways as she was continually bought and sold over the next 12 years that she forgot her original name, going only by the name Bakhita. She was beaten, sometimes so severely that she could not work for weeks, and was scarred 114 times when one of her enslavers cut patterns into her skin and rubbed salt into the wounds so they would scar. She could barely endure this pain, but stayed strong, citing, “Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself: 'Who could be the Master of these beautiful things?' And I felt a great desire to see Him, to know Him and to pay Him homage.” At this time, she did not have any ideas of faith, however, and at one point had been only forcibly converted to Islam.

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Bakhita was sold once more to an Italian Vice Consul who was kinder to her than any previous enslavers, so when he planned to return to Italy, she begged him to take her with him. He agreed, and they made the dangerous journey together, partially on camels and by sea. When they arrived, she was given to another family as a gift. Her job, then, was to accompany a young girl to school. The school was run by the Canossian Sisters in Venice, and when the family traveled abroad to their own business back in Sudan, they went without Bakhita, as she had begged to stay with the Sisters. The Sisters and even Venice’s patriarch argued on her behalf, since slavery had been illegal in Venice and even Sudan by the time she was born, and she should have been freed in 1885. She won her case, and chose to stay with the Sisters, since she had felt drawn to their faith ever since being with them, saying that they showed her the presence she’d felt in her heart ever since she was young.

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She was fully baptized and Confirmed in 1890, taking the name Josephine Margaret, and keeping the name Bakhita as well. She began to study to take the vows of religious life in 1893, taking them in 1896, and remaining where she was assigned in the convent in the town of Schio for the rest of her life. For 42 years, she cooked, sewed, and worked as a doorkeeper, sometimes traveling to other convents to tell her story. She also worked with training and teaching sisters who were becoming missionaries to Africa. She was known for her smile and her gentleness, and she often spoke about how she would even forgive her kidnappers because she had ended up knowing Jesus. A story of her life was first published in 1931, leading to her becoming well-known and loved all over Italy. 

During World War II, Schio was bombed, but not one person was harmed, and the town began to see her as their protector. 

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She was constantly in pain and had to use a wheelchair in the last few years of her life, sometimes reliving flashes of the trauma from her youth. Even so, she remained cheerful.

When she died, thousands came to pay her respect, and her cause for canonization was opened immediately. She was canonized officially in 2000, and since the story was censored in Sudan due to authorities trying to impose Sharia law, Pope John Paul II made a trip there personally to share the news with the persecuted Catholic population.