A Life Transformed
As a slave Bakhita endured a saga of trauma, abuse and torture. She had many masters and suffered much. Yet, as a Sister in the Convent at Schio she was renowned for her calmness and good humour – a profound transformation had taken place. In His Encyclical Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI explains the reason for this transformation:
“Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of “master… the living God, Jesus Christ… 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 ‘master’ above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person…..Now she had “hope” —no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God.” Spe Salvi 3
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