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| St. Josephine Bakhita & the Door to Holiness |
"I am definitively loved
and whatever happens to me,
I am awaited by this Love.
And so my life is good."
+ Josephine Bakhita
1869-1947 A.D.
As we step past All Saints' Day and see the season of Advent on the horizon, Emmaus City Church is seeking to soak in stories of people throughout the past millenia who have followed Jesus, using Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place as our resource. As these dear sisters and brothers throughout time and space sought to reflect the humility and holiness of Christ, so do we in the upcoming year ahead:
"Pursue peace with everyone,
and holiness —
without it no one will see the Lord."
+ Hebrews 12:14
Here are recent highlights:
When we handed these books out to our congregation this past weekend, this is part of the note we included inside each one:
This might seem at first
to be a peculiar Advent devotional.
But saints often are peculiar people
who stand out in a particular time and place.
In fact, the times when saints shine
the most are times of darkness.
They give glimpses of Jesus’ Light,
which darkness cannot overcome.
to be a peculiar Advent devotional.
But saints often are peculiar people
who stand out in a particular time and place.
In fact, the times when saints shine
the most are times of darkness.
They give glimpses of Jesus’ Light,
which darkness cannot overcome.
Advent begins in the dark.
And we, as part of Jesus’ Church,
are called to live as Advent people
who anticipate Jesus’ coming
into our darkness today to overcome it.
Ultimately, our hope rests in the God of Advent
who drew near to us in Jesus’ first coming
and will come again
to take away the darkness forever
and be our eternal Light.
And we, as part of Jesus’ Church,
are called to live as Advent people
who anticipate Jesus’ coming
into our darkness today to overcome it.
Ultimately, our hope rests in the God of Advent
who drew near to us in Jesus’ first coming
and will come again
to take away the darkness forever
and be our eternal Light.
That hope is what saints have embodied
as our sisters and brothers across time,
ethnicities, Christian traditions,
nationalities, and more.
as our sisters and brothers across time,
ethnicities, Christian traditions,
nationalities, and more.
As we step into this next year,
our prayer is that we will shine
all the more with the holy light
of Christ in us and through us.
And we pray that we
“being rooted and firmly established in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.”
After all, “the Father has enabled us
to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
our prayer is that we will shine
all the more with the holy light
of Christ in us and through us.
And we pray that we
“being rooted and firmly established in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.”
After all, “the Father has enabled us
to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
He has rescued us from
the domain of darkness and
transferred us into the Kingdom
of the Son He loves.”
transferred us into the Kingdom
of the Son He loves.”
This post features an excerpt from Our Church Speaks so that you might also walk some of this journey with us with reflection, prayer, and anticipation for how the Light of the world might shine in your life during this season.
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| Our Church Speaks: Josephine Bakhita |
Josephine Bakhita
The Paradox of Poverty
Josephine Bakhita's life
is a testament of God's faithfulness
in the darkest circumstances.
is a testament of God's faithfulness
in the darkest circumstances.
She was born in Darfur, Sudan, among the Daju people. Her first years were happy, but at age eight she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders. For twelve years, she was bought and sold multiple times, forced to convert to Islam, and subjected to cruel beatings and scarification. Bakhita later recalled that a day did not go by when she did not receive a wound of some kind. Her body bore 114 scars from her time in slavery. The trauma caused her to forget her birth name, and she was ironically given the Arabic name Bakhita (meaning "fortunate").
Eventually, Bakhita was purchased by an Italian government agent and brought to Italy, where she served as a maid for an Italian family. While the family was traveling out of the country, Bakhita was sent to live with nuns in a monastic community in Venice. Bakhita recalled that "those holy mothers instructed me with heroic patience and introduced me to that God who from childhood I had felt in my heart without knowing who He was." Bakhita refused to leave the convent, and her case was challenged legally. The courts ruled that her servitude was illegal and she was to be free. Her first decision as a free person was to join the monastic society that had introduced her to Jesus. After Bakhita was baptized, she served at a convent in Schio, northwest of Venice. During her forty-two years in Schio, she earned a reputation in her community for her gentle voice, profound faith, and life of prayer.
Scripture
"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the
Kingdom of heaven."
+ Matthew 5:3
Bonus Article Excerpt:
St. Josephine Bakhita
was a saint of the “little way,”
even littler still.
She is a saint
of almost-unnoticed holiness.
was a saint of the “little way,”
even littler still.
She is a saint
of almost-unnoticed holiness.
Many of us can relate to
the simplicity of this path to holiness.
the simplicity of this path to holiness.
It hearkens back to Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s
words: “In this life, we cannot do great things.
We can only do small things with great love.”
Our daily lives,
We can only do small things with great love.”
Our daily lives,
the place wherein our vocation is actualized,
provide countless opportunities
to exercise this great love
if we will only recognize them as such.
provide countless opportunities
to exercise this great love
if we will only recognize them as such.
Meditation:
The Paradox of Poverty
The word that our English Bibles translate as blessed in the beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew is the Greek word makarioi, which means something akin to happy, fortunate, enviable, or congratulatory.
In this beatitude,
Jesus is making a paradoxical statement
about His new reality:
it is those who are run down,
worn out, beaten up, or ground to dust
that will end up reigning in His Kingdom.
When you realize that you are weak, that you are poor, that you need the lowest, most base form of charity, that you don't have what it takes, that you aren't enough, that you're not going to make it, that you're dependent, that you need help — then the beatitude applies to you, and you are blessed because, in Jesus, God does help you.
Q: What do you contribute
toward your salvation?
A: Your need and your openness
to receiving help.
It's like the line in the old hymn "Come Ye Sinners": "Let not conscience make you linger, / Nor of fitness fondly dream; / All the fitness He requires / Is to feel your need of Him."
The Gospel paradox of poverty is that,
through the Gospel,
the most needy, dependent people
end up with all the riches in the end.
It's not the comfort of capitalism,
where if you outcompete
your rich neighbor, you get blessed.
It's not the comfort of Marxism,
where you overthrow
your rich neighbor and
take his stuff to get blessed.
It's not the comfort of therapy,
where you must learn coping
mechanisms to deal with the
poverty of your spirit
in order to feel blessed.
It's not the comfort of
traditional religion,
where you must overcome
your spiritual poverty with willpower
and discipline to be rewarded
with God's blessing.
None of these can offer the poor
and the poor in spirit
what Jesus can offer.
In Jesus, God has become poor and poor in spirit, and He has done so to lift you up in resurrection and to give you the riches of His Kingdom — as a free gift.
Young, enslaved Josephine Bakhita was the epitome of poor in spirit, and it was a cruel thing to nickname her "fortunate / lucky." However, in the Gospel paradox of poverty, she knew the love and blessing of salvation through Jesus. She ended up keeping the name because, in Jesus, she really was fortunate after all.
Prayer
O God, almighty and merciful, You healed the broken heart of your daughter Josephine Bakhita and turned her sorrow into joy: Let Your Fatherly goodness be upon all whom You have made. Remember in pity all those who are this day destitute and forgotten in slavery and human trafficking. Bless the multitude of Your poor. Lift up and liberate the bodies and souls of those who are cast down. Mightily befriend innocent sufferers, and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Though they are perplexed, save them from despair. Grant this, O Lord, for the love of Him who for our sakes became poor — Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
pgs. 26-28
The Celebrity & The Saint
The celebrity demands,
"Look at me!"
The saint whispers,
"Look at God."
The celebrity says,
"Try to be like me,
but you'll never be like me."
The saint says,
"Why would anyone want to be like me?
Who has God made you?"
The celebrity is ever ascending,
climbing the tower of Babel
to the double-platinum throne.
The saint is ever descending,
saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."
The celebrity offers you everything
you want but can never have.
The saint offers you the thing you fear
but will redeem your soul.
The celebrity is a Ferrari
screaming down the highway
with music blaring.
The saint is the freshwater creek
beside the highway
that almost nobody ever notices
and is nearly impossible to hear
over the roar of traffic.
Yet the water murmurs
as it wanders over stones
and around oak roots.
It is not silent.
+ Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta,
Our Church Speaks
Our Church Speaks
Bonus Book:
by Jen Norton
Bonus Podcast:
Bonus Articles:
Additional Advent Resources:
Next Post:
Many blessings of peace and presence,
Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan
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