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The Slave Who Said "My Life is Good"

This Rock Volume 19, Number 4   April 2008     Reasons for Hope By Cherie Peacock   Letters   Christians in Islamic Lands:Part One By Matthew E. Bunson   "Allah Does Not Love the Aggressors"   Sura 9:29   In Islam, No Distinction Between Church and State   Restrictions on Dhimmis in Islamic Countries   Further Reading   Does the Church Have too Many Secrets? By Russell Shaw   Not Just a Catholic Problem   Further Reading   Don’t You Want More (Not Just Mere) Christianity? By Fr. Dwight Longenecker   Determined to Deny Your Freedom By Peter A. Kwasniewski   Theological Determinism   Further Reading   Man Needs Hope to Live By Christopher Kaczor   The Slave Who Said "My Life Is Good"   Damascus Road The Narrow Gate Beckons By Jill Sebastian   By the Book Every Word That Comes from the Mouth of God By Jim Blackburn   Eyes to See The Still Approach of Eternity By Michael Schrauzer   Truth be Told The Pope Who Outlasted a Tyrant By Matthew E. Bunson   Quick Questions   Last Writes By Karl Keating    Subscribe    Permissions

In Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI recalls the story of Josephine Bakhita, who endured more than her share of unjust calamities:

At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life. . . . [A]fter the terrifying "masters" who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of "master"—the living God, the God of Jesus Christ. Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her "at the Father’s right hand." 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." (SS 3)