Plainly Speaking - Saint Josephine Bakhita

Dear Friends,

When it comes to the debated mystery of salvation, Saint Josephine Bakhita is a perfect example of how the mythical “invincibly” ignorant native is not outside the providence of God. He can use the most adverse circumstances to bring about good. With God all things are possible.

In the opening of the Gospel of Saint John, the Evangelist tells us that God made all things, beginning with light. As the sun, moon, and stars give light to all, so too, does He “enlighten every man that comes into this world.”

Saint Bakhita, born in a remote part of Africa, captured and sold into slavery at an early age, had never heard the Gospel. Rather, she was surrounded by the darkness of paganism and Islam. Nevertheless, she was enlightened by the wonders of God’s creation. “I knew nothing of idols,” she relates, “I just looked at the stars, so beautiful as they were, and the bright sun and I kept repeating: I love the Person who made all these wonderful things.”

Furthermore, our saint obeyed the moral law of God which is written in the heart of every man and kept herself modest and pure. And in return, although she was severely mistreated by beatings and whippings, God, in His Divine Providence, never allowed her purity to be violated.

Another article in this issue, explains how God gives everyone without exception a Guardian Angel at birth. These angels are not merely passive onlookers but they actually guard, guide, and inspire us with good thoughts. Bakhita, even while still a pagan, saw her Guardian Angel who saved her from death as she fled from her captors through the jungle.

Certainly God, Who knows the number of hairs on our head, is not far from anyone and approaches ever closer to those who seek Him—the True Light. So it was with Bakhita. But there are those who, as Saint Augustine says, love the lusts of darkness which make them blind.

Saint Bakhita was faithful to the actual graces given to her and God was merciful to her, as she never tired of relating in her Tale of Wonder. God showed His Mercy not by sending a missionary, to teach and baptize her, but in a very different way. He used her slavery as the means leading to salvation. The Faith was not brought to her in Africa but she was brought in servitude to the Faith in Catholic Italy.

As a true saint, she not only forgave her former captors but believed them to be her true benefactors. If she were ever to meet them she said, “I would kneel down and kiss their hands because if it were not for them I would not be a Christian now or a religious.”

Such is a real life story—rather than human speculation—of God’s providence, His loving mercy, and how he brings those of good will to peace and salvation