At the age of nine, Bakhita was kidnapped from her village in southern Sudan and sold into slavery. For years, she was sold from one set of masters to another, experiencing brutality in many forms. Eventually she wound up with an Italian family, working as a servant and nursemaid to their baby. When this child was old enough to be sent to a boarding school run by the Daughters of Charity, Bakhita accompanied her. It was there that she first heard the Gospel and divined God’s will that she be free.

Upon learning of her mistress’s plans to return to Sudan, Bakhita expressed her intention to remain. Unable to change Bakhita’s mind, the Signora sued in court for the return of her “property.” Only then did Bakhita discover what no one had bothered to inform her: that slavery was illegal in Italy. She had been free all along. By this time Bakhita had heard a voice urging her to consecrate herself to God. Baptized with the name Josephine Bakhita, she was accepted into the novitiate of the congregation that had sheltered her.

She lived to the age of seventy-eight, mostly engaged in simple tasks: cooking, sewing, serving as doorkeeper. No work was unimportant when done for “the Master”—her favorite name for God. She was famous for her quiet faith and the care she brought to assignments big and small. She died on February 8, 1947, and was canonized in 2000, becoming the first native saint of Sudan.

“Seeing the sun, the moon, and the stars, I said to myself: Who could be the Master of these beautiful things? And I felt a great desire to see him, to know him, and to pay him homage.” —St. Josephine Bakhita