Lent is often associated with sacrifice and self-denial, but at its core, it's a season of hope. Hope that we can change. Hope that God's grace is sufficient. Hope that Easter joy awaits on the other side of the cross. And if you're looking for a saintly companion to walk with you through these forty days, few are better suited than Saint Josephine Bakhita.
From Slavery to Sainthood
Born in Sudan around 1869, Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped by slave traders at the age of seven. Over the following years, she endured unspeakable cruelty — beaten, branded, and sold multiple times. She was so traumatized that she forgot her own name; "Bakhita," meaning "fortunate" in Arabic, was the name given to her by her captors in cruel irony.
Yet through a series of providential events, Bakhita eventually found herself in Italy, where she encountered the Catholic faith. When she learned about God — a God who loved her, who had always loved her, who had never abandoned her even in her darkest hours — something extraordinary happened. She found hope.
A Hope That Transforms
Bakhita was baptized, confirmed, and received her First Communion on January 9, 1890. She later joined the Canossian Sisters, spending the rest of her life in prayer and service. When asked about her former masters, she responded with breathtaking grace: "If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, 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."
This is not naïveté or Stockholm syndrome. This is the radical hope of the Gospel — the ability to see God's hand at work even in the most broken circumstances. As Romans 8:28 declares, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him."
Walking with Bakhita This Lent
Whatever you're carrying this Lent — grief, addiction, broken relationships, doubt — Saint Josephine Bakhita understands suffering. She doesn't offer platitudes or easy answers. She offers something far more powerful: the testimony of a life transformed by hope.
Each day of Lent, ask for her intercession. Read her story. Let her remind you that no darkness is so deep that God's light cannot reach it. And when Easter morning comes, let the joy you feel be magnified by the knowledge that hope — real, tested, unshakable hope — has carried you through.
Saint Josephine Bakhita, pray for us.
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