Forgiveness Gives You Dignity and Sets You Free
ShareThe Pope continues his catechesis series on apostolic zeal, and recalls St Josephine Bakhita
Forgiveness gives you dignity and sets you free
At the General Audience on Wednesday morning, 11 October [2023], Pope Francis expressed his sorrow and apprehension for the ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine. He also invited all people of good will to help those affected by a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan. Earlier, the Pope had continued his series of catecheses on apostolic zeal, this week reflecting on the life of St Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese saint who the Pope said, “helps us to unmask our hypocrisies and selfishness, to overcome resentments and conflicts”. The following is a translation of the Holy Father's words, which he shared in Italian with the faithful in Saint Peter's Square.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
In our journey of catechesis on apostolic zeal — we are reflecting on apostolic zeal — today we let ourselves be inspired by the witness of Saint Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese saint. Unfortunately, for months Sudan has been torn by a terrible armed conflict, of which little is said today; let us pray for the Sudanese people, so they might live in peace! But Saint Bakhita’s fame has exceeded every boundary and reached all those to whom identity and dignity are denied.
Born in Darfur — battered Darfur! — in 1869, she was abducted from her family at the age of seven, and made a slave. Her abductors called her “Bakhita ”, which means “fortunate”. She had eight different masters — each one sold her on to the next. The physical and moral suffering she experienced as a child left her with no identity. She suffered cruelty and violence: on her body she bore more than a hundred scars. But she herself testified: “As a slave I never despaired, because I felt a mysterious force supporting me”.
In the face of this, I wonder: what was Saint Bakhita’s secret? We know that a wounded person often wounds in turn: the oppressed easily becomes the oppressor. Instead, the vocation of the oppressed is that of freeing themselves and their oppressors, becoming restorers of humanity. Only in the weakness of the oppressed can the strength of God’s love, which frees both, be revealed. Saint Bakhita expresses this truth very well. One day her tutor gave her a small crucifix and she, who had never owned anything, treasured it jealously. Looking at it, she experienced inner liberation, because she felt she was understood and loved and therefore capable of understanding and loving: this was the beginning. She felt she was understood, she felt loved, and as a consequence, capable of understanding and loving others. Indeed, she would go on to say: “God’s love has always accompanied me in a mysterious way… The Lord has loved me very much: you have to love everyone … you have to have pity!”. This is Bakhita’s soul. Truly, to feel pity means both to suffer with the victims of the great inhumanity in the world, and also to pity those who commit errors and injustices, not justifying, but humanizing. This is the caress she teaches us: to humanize. When we enter the logic of fighting, of division among us, of bad feelings, one against the other, we lose our humanity. And very often we think we are in need of humanity, of being more humane. And this is the work that Saint Bakhita teaches us: to humanize, to humanize ourselves and to humanize others.
When Saint Bakhita, became Christian, she was transformed by the following words of Christ, upon which she meditated every day: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). That is why she used to say: “If Judas had asked Jesus for forgiveness, he too would have found mercy”. We can say that St Bakhita’s life became an existential parable of forgiveness. It is nice to be able to say about someone: “he was capable, she was capable of forgiving, always”. And she was always capable of forgiving; indeed, her life is an existential parable of forgiveness. To forgive because we will be forgiven. Do not forget this: forgiveness, which is God’s caress to all of us.
Forgiveness set her free. Forgiveness she first received through God’s merciful love, and then the forgiveness given, made her a free, joyful woman, capable of loving.
Bakhita was able to experience service not as slavery, but as an expression of the free gift of self. And this is very important: made a servant against her will — she was sold as a slave — she later freely chose to become a servant, to bear the burdens of others on her shoulders.
Saint Josephine Bakhita, by her example, shows us the way to finally be free from our slavery and fears. She helps us to unmask our hypocrisies and selfishness, to overcome resentments and conflicts. And she encourages us, always.
Dear brothers and sisters, forgiveness takes away nothing but adds — what does forgiveness add? — dignity: forgiveness takes away nothing from you but adds dignity to the person; it makes us lift our gaze from ourselves and towards others, to see them as fragile as we are, yet always brothers and sisters in the Lord. Brothers and sisters, forgiveness is the wellspring of a zeal that becomes mercy and calls us to a humble and joyful holiness, like that of Saint Bakhita.
L'Osservatore Romano
13 October 2023, page 3
