Journeying in Dignity: Listen, Dream, Act
Each year
approximately 2.5 million people are victims of trafficking and modern day
slavery. For the traffickers it has become one of the most lucrative illegal
activities in the world.
Bakhita
was born in Darfur Sudan in 1868. She had a happy carefree childhood until it
was stolen from her by slave traders. Bakhita was nine years old when she was
kidnapped. She was so traumatized by the
experience that she forgot, not only her name but her family name also. Literally
everything was taken from her. The traders gave her the name Bakhita which
means ‘Fortunate’.
Before her fortune changed she was passed from one set of traffickers to
another. To them she was a commodity not a person. She was branded and tortured
by her capturers. But her ‘fortune’ did change when she was sold to an Italian
family in Khartoum Sudan . Even though life was better for her with this new
family she was still their slave. The family moved to Italy and she asked to go
with them. They agreed. While in Italy, she became a babysitter to the family
of Augusto Michieli, and she accompanied him to Venice’s Institute of the
Catechumens, run by the Canossian Sisters. While in Venice, Josephine felt
drawn to the Catholic Church. It was here that she learned about God. Josephine
told the sisters that she had always known about God, who created all things,
and wanted to learn more about him.
When the Michieli family decided to
return to Sudan, they wished to take Josephine back with them, but she refused
to go. The Canossian sisters and the patriarch of Venice intervened on her
behalf to allow her to remain with the Sisters. The judge concluded that since
slavery was illegal in Italy, she had actually been free since 1885.
To ask
for her freedom must had demanded great courage on her part at that time. She
legally obtained her freedom and became an Italian citizen. She was baptized and chose the name Josephine. Later she joined the Canossian sisters. She
dedicated her live to the care of the poor.
At her canonization in 2000, Pope John Paul II said, “In St. Josephine
Bakhita we find a
shining advocate of genuine emancipation. The history of her life inspires not passive acceptance but the
firm resolve to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression and
violence, and to return them to their dignity in the full exercise of their
rights.”
It is an amazing story of resilience, hope and grace on the part of this
young woman. And it is no wonder she was chosen to highlight the International Day
of Trafficking.
If you want to learn more about the situation in Ireland and become
aware of how you can do your part to help, the following website is helpful. www.aptireland.org
St. Josephine we continue to ask you to intercede for all those people
who are enslaved by traffickers today in Ireland and the World.
Prayer
St. Josephine Bakhita, you were sold into slavery as a child and endured
untold hardship and suffering. Once liberated from your physical enslavement,
you found true redemption in your encounter with Christ and his Church.
St. Bakhita, assist all those who are
trapped in a state of slavery
; intercede with God on their behalf so that they
will be released from their chains of captivity. Those whom man enslaves, let
God set free.
Provide comfort to survivors of slavery and let them look to you as an
example of hope and faith. Help all survivors find healing from their wounds.
We ask for your prayers and intercessions for those enslaved among us.
Amen.
(published by the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, a prayer to St. Josephine Bakhita)
Image taken from: https://ssjphila.org/saint-josephine-bakhita/
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