Saint Josephine Bakhita

Josephine Bakhita was born in 1869 in Sudan. As a child, she was kidnapped, enslaved, sold, tortured and humiliated. Eventually, a master moved her to Italy. There Josephine met the Canossian Sisters. After a legal battle to establish her freedom, Josephine joined the sisters in 1893. She once said, “If I were to meet the slave-traders who kidnapped me and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands, for if that did not happen, I would not be a Christian and Religious today.”