St. Josephine Bakhita was born in 1868 in the village of Olgossa, Darfur (Sudan). As a child, she was kidnapped by slave traders and was given the name Bakhita which means “lucky” or “fortunate." She endured the horrors of slavery before she attained freedom in Italy. There, Josephine became a nun with the Canossian Daughters of Charity and lived and worked with them for 45 years.
Pope John Paul II shared the following words when he beatified Sister Josephine Bakhita in 1992:
“Josephine Bakhita, in her humility and total abandonment in God, teaches us not only to work and to pray but, above all, to trust. From her painful experiences, she had learned, with God's grace, to have complete trust in him, who is present always and everywhere, and therefore to be constantly and with everyone good and generous.”
The Feast Day for St. Josephine Bakhita is February 8, and she is the patron saint of Sudan and human trafficking survivors.
