Transcript
Saint Bakhita the Patron Saint of human trafficking. Saint Josephine Bakhita was born in Sudan in 1869. Bakhita was sold and resold in the markets of El Obeid and of Khartoum. She experienced the humiliations and sufferings of slavery, both physical and moral. Bakhita was not the name she received from her parents at birth. The fright and the terrible experiences she went through made her to forget the name she was given by her parents. Bakhita, which means fortunate, was the name given to her by kidnappers. This African flower, who knew the anguish of kidnapping and slavery, bloomed marvellously in Italy, and in response to God’s grace, with the Daughters of Charity. Divine Providence which cares for the flowers of the fields and the birds of the air, guided the Sudanese slave through innumerable and unspeakable sufferings of human freedom and to the freedom of faith and finally to the consecration of her life to God for the coming of the Kingdom. Her humility and simplicity and her constant smile warms the hearts of all. And she grew old, and experienced long, painful years of sickness. Mother Bakhita continued to witness to faith, goodness, and Christian hope. It was Mary Most Holy who free from all pain, her last words, ‘Our Lady! Our Lady’, and her final smile testified to her the Mother of the Lord. Today, as we celebrate her feast day, we pray for the end of human trafficking in our modern world. And pray for the sufferers or the survivors. May the Lord provide and protect them.