Spe salvi, 3 (and Saint Josephine Bakhita)

Up to now we have seen that, as Saint Paul says, “in hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24). We have further seen that faith and hope are intimately connected and even interchangeable (Spe salvi, 2). We also saw that the present only becomes livable if we can be certain of good in the future.

This sort of talk is deeply theological and philosophical and, as such, has the tendency to leave many heads spinning in a daze of confusion, which is part of the intellectual and spiritual excitement this encyclical can generate (for those of us who like this sort of thing).

With all that we have done, we have yet to answer the question, “What is our hope?” which might well account for the confusion. We have, though, asked the question, and a very good question it is:

[W]hat sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here (Spe salvi, 1)?

In the third paragraph Pope Benedict XVI seeks to answer the question by way of example.

He sought to do much the same thing in his first encyclical, Deus caritas est, when he turned briefly first to the life of Saint Lawrence [c. 225-258], one of the seven deacons of Rome, in whom charity “found a vivid expression” (23). Next he turned to the example of the emperor Julian the Apostate [331-363] who, though not impressed with the Christian faith, was impressed with “the Church’s charitable activity” (24). Through these two (seemingly contradictory) figures the Holy Father proceeded to demonstrate the importance of works of charity for the Christian.

In the present encyclical, he uses the example of Saint Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947) to begin answering the question, “in what does hope consist which, as hope, is ‘redemption’” (3)? We recall here that, “redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, a trustworthy hope” (Spe salvi, 1). For what do we hope? How can this hope be redemption?

The Apostle Paul gives us the answer to this question when he writes to the Christians of Ephesus. He writes, as we have previously seen,

Therefore, remember that at one time you, Gentiles in the flesh … were at that time without Christ, alienated from the community of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world” (2:11-12).

To be without Christ is to be without hope; to be with Christ, then, is to have hope.

“We who have always lived with the concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it,” writes the Holy Father, “have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with God” (Spe salvi, 3). It takes just a few moments at Mass on Sunday to see that the Pontiff is very much correct in this observation. We are introduced to our hope at a young age, it is everywhere around us, yet only rarely do we ever take any notice of it. We too often grow complacent in our faith, in our hope, and hence our knowledge of God begins to fade.

Pope Benedict XVI understands that these discussions are a bit cerebral and so he says, “the example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time” (Spe salvi, 3). He then offers a moving brief biography of the holy woman, Josephine Bakhita, that is worth quoting in full:

She was born around 1869—she herself did not know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. 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. Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying “masters” who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of “master”—in Venetian dialect, which she was now learning, she used the name “paron” for 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. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron” above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. 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.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God. She understood what Paul meant when he reminded the Ephesians that previously they were without hope and without God in the world—without hope because without God. Hence, when she was about to be taken back to Sudan, Bakhita refused; she did not wish to be separated again from her “Paron”. On 9 January 1890, she was baptized and confirmed and received her first Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch of Venice. On 8 December 1896, in Verona, she took her vows in the Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and from that time onwards, besides her work in the sacristy and in the porter's lodge at the convent, she made several journeys round Italy in order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people. The hope born in her which had “redeemed” her she could not keep to herself; this hope had to reach many, to reach everybody.

This woman with 144 scars came to know her true Master, her true Paron, Jesus Christ, who, many centuries earlier, willingly accepted flogging and death for her. She came to know the One who is Good and so she received hope, she who, it would seem, had little reason to hope.

The words of Saint Paul were true for her: with God she was with hope. And because she was with hope she could say, “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me – I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Would that each of us could echo these words!

Josephine, through her hope, realized that “the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey” (Spe salvi, 1).

She new her goal was Jesus Christ; she knew that she could be sure of this goal because Christ “had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her ‘at the Father’s right hand’” (Spe salvi, 3); she knew that this goal was certainly great enough because she had truly been redeemed, bought back, “no longer a slave, but a free child of God” (Spe salvi, 3).

We, too, have been redeemed, bought back, and so we are with hope: Christ Jesus.