First of two parts
CONSIDERED legally as a property until November 29, 1869, this black slave girl who cannot even remember her name experienced unimaginable tortures in the hands of her masters.
Her induction to sainthood was as dramatic. She hid from her master a crucifix given to her as a gift by Iluminato Cecchini, a bailiff of the Michelli family unaware that her master was an atheist.
Josephine Bakhita’s freedom as slave was initiated by the Superior of the Institute of the Catechumens, Don Jacopo de Conti d’Avogrado di Soranzo, who brought to the attention of Patriarch Dominic Agostini, president of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Catechumenate, and the verdict as a free person decided by the Procurator of the King.
She was baptized, confirmed and received the Holy Communion from Patriarch Dominic Agostini. Her grandparents were Venetian aristocrats, Count Marco Avogadro di Soranzo and Countess Josephine.
Then-Pope Pius X interviewed her as aspirant to the religious life.
When she died, Schio, the town where she lived for more than 50 years, was “grounded to a halt.”
The snows of winter did not discourage people who patiently waited for hours in queue to honor her. Families from nearby towns and villages who have known her and read the story of Storia Miravigliosa flocked to pay their respects to the “Black nun who was a saint.”
Days after her demise, her body “preserved a surprising suppleness and elasticity, the softness of the skin and red color of her lips.”
Her corpse was literary covered with all kinds of objects to be “blessed by simple contact” with her hands or black habit. Public opinion was against her burial in a common grave. Signor Gasparella obtained permission for her to be buried in her family chapel in a double zinc coffin.
It was only after her death that doctors and Canossian nuns discovered the cruelty she endured.
In Bakhita, From Slavery to Sainthood, Fr. Adolf Faroni, SDB, narrated that “all the doctors and the sisters were astonished and deeply moved as they for the first time could see the 140 deep scars on her body caused by the cruel tattoos, and the deep furrow in her thigh which was the result of the repeated blows of the lash.”
Slave of cruel masters
Josephine Bakhita was born in Darfur, a region in Olgossa, Sudan, in 1869. She belonged to a big family. She had three brothers, four sisters and four other siblings who died before she was born.
As a catechumate when she was being taught about the Catholic faith in Italy, she remembered how she admired the beauty of the stars, the sun and the moon. And she mused: “Who is the master of all these wonderful things?” And, she felt a “keen desire to see Him, to know Him, and to pay Him homage.”
Bakhita’s eldest sister was kidnapped from their house. When she was about 9 years old, she, too, was kidnapped while strolling in the fields, “probably in February or March of 1887,” by two Arab men.
So frightened, she could not even remember her name, so one of the kidnappers named her Bakhita, which means lucky in Arab.
After a month of being locked in a lumber room shelling corncobs and feeding mules, she was sold to a slave dealer. She joined a caravan of slaves tied on the neck with a chain for two-and-a-half weeks, At El Obeid, Kordofan, the richest town in Sudan, the slaves were sold.
Bakhita and another girl were brought to the “house of the Arab chief, probably Elias Umm Bireir, nominated governor of Kordofan by British General Gordon Pasha,” Father Faroni wrote. They were assigned as maids to Bireir’s two young daughters. The Arab chief was also cruel. After displeasing his son, he was whipped, kicked and hurled to the ground, half dead.
She was resold to a general in the Turkish army and served two young ladies. Every day she is awakened by a whip. All the slaves were tattooed; even their faces. She, too, underwent the tattoo ritual, but her face was spared. She received 60 gaping wounds on her breasts and belly, which were salted to heal, and 48 on her arms.
Unconscious, she was forced to lie down, unable to move for a month.
In Bakhita’s words: “I did not die, it must have been through the miraculous love of the Lord who destined me for better things.”
From Africa to Italy
In mid-1882, the Turkish general, convinced that rebels would capture El Obeid, decided to go back to Turkey. At Kordofan, he sold the slaves, except Bakhita and nine others.
At Khartoum, he advertised: “Some Slaves For Sale,” and invited the Italian consul to the sale.
The agent of the consul, Calisto Legnani, responded and expressed that Bakhita serve him coffee. The next day, the general asked her to follow the consul’s maid to help carry a parcel. Her new master treated her kindly as a housemaid. But after two-and-half years, she was ordered to return to Italy. Her request that she be taken with them to Italy was granted.
In Genoa, Italy, Legnani was pressured by a friend, Augusto Michelli, and his wife, Turina, an atheist to give Bahkita to them.
Illuminato Cecchini, bailiff of the Michelli Family and a member of Trevisian Catholics introduced Bakhita to the Catholic faith. He paid the fees of a catechumenate to teach her the faith. He encouraged her to choose the religious life, Father Faroni said in his book about Bakhita.
After kissing a crucifix with great devotion Cecchini gave the crucifix to Bakhita and explained that Jesus Christ died for mankind.
Although Bakhita did not grasp what it meant, she felt a mysterious force, looked at it, experienced a feeling which she could not explain and hid it, afraid that Turina might take it away.
Bakhita cared for the couple’s daughter Mimmina. When Turina moved to Suakin to help her husband, Bakhita and her ward were transferred and entrusted to the Canossian Sisters of the Institute of the Catechumens in Venice.
When Turina was back from Sudan, she wanted at all cost to take her back. She claimed her rights on Bakhita as a person—a property.
Bakhita adamantly refused. She wanted to finish her lessons on the Catholic faith and be baptized.
The argument became so serious but was resolved in favour of Bakhita. Turina, with tears of rage, took her child who did not like to be separated with Bakhita. To be concluded
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
1 comment
Whose’s this ‘governor Elias Umm Bireir’?
I would like to know the source other than Zanini
tanks