A Note From Our Pastor: February 15, 2026

This past Sunday would have been the feast day date of one of my favorite saints: Josephine Bakhita. Despite being not being well known to most Catholics, her witness speaks to my heart, and I feel a certain friendship with her.

She was born in Sudan in 1869, into a stable and loving family, one of seven children. At age nine she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders who forced her to convert to Islam. The kidnappers called her ‘Bakhita’, which ironically means “fortunate”. It’s the name she would keep all her life. Over the course of eight years, sold and resold five times in the markets of El Obeid and of Khartoum, she experienced great suffering, both physical and emotional.

In 1883, an Italian businessman purchased her and two years later took her to live in Italy. As a dark-skinned foreigner, she was not always treated well there either, though this phase of her life brought peace and stability. Some years later, the family with whom she lived had to leave for a time, so they entrusted her to the care of a community of women religious (the Canossian Sisters).

Later, when they came to reclaim her, Bakhita didn’t want to leave. A legal battle ensued, and finally the Italian court ruled that because slavery was illegal at the time of her captivity, she was to be granted freedom. With the sisters, Bakhita came to know about God whom “she had experienced in her heart without knowing who He was” ever since she was a child. “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...”

On January 9, 1890 (age 20), Bakhita was baptized and took a new name, Josephine. She received her First Holy Communion from Archbishop Giuseppe Sarta, who would later be known to us as Pope Pius X. She was often seen kissing the baptismal font and saying: “Here, I became a daughter of God!” Years later, she made her solemn vows as a Canossian Sister.

A young student once asked Bakhita: "What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?" Without hesitation she responded: "I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today". Sister Josephine Bakhita died on February 8, 1947. A triumphant spirit, despite suffering, a forgiving spirit. St. Josephine Bakhita…pray for us! I strongly recommend the movie Bakhita: From Slave to Saint, which you (and your family) can see for free on Formed.org.

Yours in Christ,

Father Todd O. Strange