Josephine Bakhita

Josephine Bakhita (* 1869 in Olgossa, Sudan, † February 8, 1947 in Italy) is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

Life

Bakhita was born in the village Olgossa in the western Sudanese province of Darfur. Her father was the brother of the village chief. At the age of six or seven years, she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders and sold five times in the markets of al - Ubayyid and Khartoum in the next eight years. The trauma of abduction made ​​her forget her own name, so that today only the name of it is known, which was given to her by the slavers ( Bakhita, the Arabic word for "happy" ), and the name she and at baptism Confirmation accepted.

Changing owner

During her detention, Bakhita had often suffer brutality. So she struck the son of one of its owners so much that she could not get up from her bed of straw for a month. As a worst memory she later became known that at its fourth owner, a Turkish general, for his wife's mother she had to do slave services. This general made ​​them - like his other slaves - mark by a kind of scarification and tattooing as his property. In her journal, she wrote many years later in Italian, she describes how a woman flour, salt and a blade mounted, pattern recorded on their skin, this then filled along inside cut and the wounds with salt to produce permanent scarring. More than 60 such sections were mounted on her chest, stomach and arms.

Sales to Italy

Bakhita last buyer was the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who treated her well and apparently was planning to release her, but then gave the now 16 -year-old his friend Augusto Michieli. She was taken to Italy and there nanny of Michielis daughter Mimmina. 1888 or 1889 were placed in the custody of the Canossians in Venice, during the Michielis moved for business reasons at the Red Sea Bakhita and Mimmina. 1890 Bakhita was baptized at their request and took the name Giuseppina Margarita ( Margaret Josephine ) on. When the Michielis wanted to take her daughter and Josefine back to his home, they did not. Mrs. Michieli wanted their return to their household force, but the head of the religious school, who had visited Josefine and Mimmina in Venice, went to court. An Italian court ruled that slavery in Sudan had been legally abolished before her birth, and that the Italian law regardless of any recognized slavery, so Josefine was legally never been a slave. Josefine, meanwhile, had reached the age of majority for the first time and could determine their own lives. She decided to stay with the Canossians.

Entering the order

On December 8, 1895, Sr. Josephine passed the final profession. In 1902 she was sent to a house in Schio in the northern Italian province of Vicenza, where she spent the rest of their lives. Only 1935-1938 she left Schio to assist in Milan in preparing young sisters for work in Africa.

During her 45 years in Schio Sr. Josephine was most active at the gate of the monastery, so they had close contact with the population. Her kindness, her pleasant voice and her constant smile were well known, and still know they are in Vicenza as la nostra madre moretta ("our coffee brown mother "). Their order recognized her special charism and encouraged them to write down their memories and talk about their experiences; this they made known throughout Italy. Their final years were marked by pain and sickness, but they kept their cheerfulness, and asked how she was, she always smiled and replied, " as the Lord wishes ." In her last days she was mentally transported back to their years in slavery and cried out in her delirium, "Please, loosen the chains ... they are so hard ."

Sr. Josephine Bakhita died on 8 February 1947. During the three days, during which her ​​body was laid out, thousands came to show their respect. Votes were immediately loudly advocated their canonization, and the process of beatification was opened in 1959, only twelve years after her death. On December 1, 1978, Pope John Paul II Josephine Bakhita to the Venerable Servant of God. On May 17, 1992, she was beatified and determines February 8 at their commemoration in the liturgy of the Catholic Church. On October 1, 2000 Josephine Bakhita was canonized. It is regarded as the patron saint of the Catholic Church in Sudan.