Bakhita lived with her parents and siblings until the day she was kidnapped in the forest by Arab slave traders. They took her to a town called El-Obeid, where she was sold. The man who bought her that day would be the first of a total of five “masters” who owned her during her life.
One of those five men — her fourth “master” — was particularly cruel. She suffered the worst humiliation and mistreatment by him when she was only about 13. He had her tattooed, which involved suffering 114 incisions made in her skin. To avoid later infection, these cuts were “cured” with salt over the course of a month. Reflecting on the great trauma and abuse she endured, Bakhita remarked: “I felt like I was going to die at any moment, especially when they put the salt on me.”
In 1884, Bakhita arrived in Italy accompanying her fifth “master” and a friend of his, Augusto Michieli. Michieli would become her sixth and last owner, after taking her to his house as a servant, since slavery was forbidden in Italy. She worked as a nanny in the Michieli household and became close friends with one of the family’s daughters, Minnina. Years later, both would become nuns in Venice.
It was during her time with the Michieli family that Bakhita came to know God and learned that “he had always remained in her heart,” even in the moments of greatest pain, and that he had given her the strength to be able to endure so much mistreatment.
On Jan. 9, 1890, the saint received baptism, first Communion, and confirmation. From that moment on, she took the Christian name of “Josephine Margaret Fortunate.” She decided to stay in Italy, where she felt safer, far from the danger of being enslaved again, and where she had met the one she had been waiting for all her life — Jesus of Nazareth. Together with Minnina, she entered the novitiate of the Institute of the Sisters of Charity in Venice and would become, years later, a member of the order at the age of 38 on Dec. 7, 1893.
In 1902 she was sent to Venice, where she worked cleaning, cooking, and caring for the poor. Without doing anything “extraordinary,” Bakhita earned the reputation of a saint. Always modest and humble, she maintained a firm faith, making her daily life a beautiful offering to God.
Credit: Source link
