{"id":11349,"date":"2017-02-07T08:02:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T08:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justiceandpeace.org.au\/?page_id=11349"},"modified":"2017-02-09T00:18:13","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T00:18:13","slug":"feast-day-of-st-josephine-bakhita-international-day-of-prayer-and-awareness-against-human-trafficking","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/justiceandpeace.org.au\/feast-day-of-st-josephine-bakhita-international-day-of-prayer-and-awareness-against-human-trafficking\/","title":{"rendered":"Feast day of St Josephine Bakhita\/ International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cLoosen the chains . . . they are so heavy\u201d – Saint Josephine Bakhita, above.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St Josephine Bakhita\u00a0on the\u00a08th of\u00a0February each year.\u00a0<\/strong> <\/span>Her life<\/a> was a journey from slavery\u00a0to\u00a0freedom and faith.\u00a0 The patron saint of Sudan, her life story inspires hope\u00a0in the face of\u00a0modern day\u00a0indifference and exploitation.\u00a0 As Pope Francis states:<\/p>\n

‘She is charged with showing to all the path to conversion, which enables us to change the way we see our neighbours, to recognize in every other person a brother or sister in our human family, and to acknowledge his or her intrinsic dignity in truth and freedom. This can be clearly seen from the story of Josephine Bakhita, the saint originally from the Darfur region in Sudan who was kidnapped by slave-traffickers and sold to brutal masters when she was nine years old. Subsequently \u2013 as a result of painful experiences \u2013 she became a \u201cfree daughter of God\u201d thanks to her faith, lived in religious consecration and in service to others, especially the most lowly and helpless. This saint, who lived at the turn of the twentieth century, is even today an exemplary witness of hope for the many victims of slavery; she can support the efforts of all those committed to fighting against this \u201copen wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ\u201d.<\/em>‘ (Message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace 2015<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI considered St Bakhita as an ‘exemplary witness of hope’<\/span><\/strong>, in his encyclical, Spe Salvi<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“To come to know God\u2014the true God\u2014means to receive hope. We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God. The example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time. I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope John Paul II….She was born around 1869\u2014she herself did not know the precise date\u2014in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life. Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying \u201cmasters\u201d who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of \u201cmaster\u201d\u2014in Venetian dialect, which she was now learning, she used the name \u201cparon\u201d for the living God, the God of Jesus Christ. Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a \u201cparon\u201d above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her\u2014that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme \u201cParon\u201d, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her \u201cat the Father’s right hand\u201d. Now she had \u201chope\u201d \u2014no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: \u201cI am definitively loved and whatever happens to me\u2014I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.\u201d Through the knowledge of this hope she was \u201credeemed\u201d, no longer a slave, but a free child of God.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0The International Day of Prayer and Awareness\u00a0Against Human Trafficking<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>is also held on\u00a08 February each year in<\/span><\/span> light of the example of St Josephine Bakhita, so that we might reflect <\/a>on the circumstances of violence and injustice affecting millions of voiceless people.\u00a0\u00a0We can do this by stopping for a few moments a saying a prayer to God. \u00a0We can also learn more <\/a>about modern forms of slavery and trafficking and reflect on how our choices might be contributing to a system perpetuating this exploitation.\u00a0 We can join together, pray\u00a0and start conversations about this important issue.<\/p>\n

There are numerous resources available to help us reflect and pray:<\/p>\n