Melissa Petruzzello is Associate Editor of Plant and Environmental Science and covers a range of content from plants, algae, and fungi, to renewable energy and environmental engineering. Bakhita was baptized in January 1890 and took the name Josephine. Although she was just a child, she was forced to walk barefoot over 600 miles to a slave market in El Obeid. Bakhita, the first canonized Sudanese saint, led the way for those who today seek among us hope for their life. She was five years old when her older sister was kidnapped and when Bakhita was about seven years old, she experienced the same tragedy herself. For many years, Josephine Bakhita was a slave but her spirit was always free and eventually that spirit prevailed. This decentralization from herself manifested a creative generosity; for this was already the beginning of a path of redemption that rooted altruism in her. St. Josephine Bakhita - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online Without hesitation, she replied: "If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. Death: February 8, 1947. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. She is the patron saint of Sudan and of victims of human trafficking. She was baptized on January 9, 1890 and took the name Josephine Margaret and Fortunata. Reception centres, training courses or places named after Saint Bakhita are being built throughout various parts of Italy. Ida Zanolini, in Positio, p. 113 233). She told about how the general's wife ordered her to be scarred. In 1883 she was sold to an Italian consul in Khartoum, Callisto Legnani, who treated her more humanely. She was gentle and charismatic, and was often referred to lovingly as the "little brown sister" or honorably as the "black mother.". Provide comfort to survivors of slavery and let them look to you as an example of hope Bakhita knew the reality of being a slave, an immigrant, and a spiritual seeker. He did not waver and was adamant that Bakhita was free and had the right to choose, since slavery no longer existed in Italy. Josephine wrote that as soon as one wound would heal, they would inflict another. On February 8, the Church commemorates the life of St. Josephine Bakhita, a Canossian Sister who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Sudan. As punishment for clumsiness, she was beaten so severely that she was incapacitated for a month and was sold again when she recovered. Josephine Bakhita (c. 1869 - 8 February 1947) was a Sudanese-born former slave who became a Roman Catholic Canossian nun in Italy, living and working there for 45 years. 2023 Loyola Press. Over the next decade of enslavement, Josephine was passed from owner to owner, bought and sold so many times that she forgot her birth name. When her mistress returned from Sudan, Josephine refused to leave.