The feast of Saint Josephine Bakhita

People are often scandalized by the problem of evil. If God is both all good, and all powerful, how can He allow evil in this world? Saint Augustine answered this question over a thousand years ago, that “God only allows evil in His works, that He may bring about a greater good.”

And so it was with today’s Saint. Saint Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped from her home and sold as a slave, but she knew that through this great evil, God had brought about a great good.

When asked what she would say to her persecutors, she said, “If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.”

May we always be enabled, by the grace of God, to see the good in even the worst of situations.

Saint Josephine Bakhita, pray for us.