Interest in Bakhita spread beyond Schio. A journalist friend of the Canossian Sisters wanted to meet and interview her. Ida Zanolini could sense the makings of a good story, and she asked Bakhita’s superiors’ permission to meet with her. She hoped to take detailed notes and write the sister‘s dramatic biography.
The superior general, Sister Maria Cipolla, approved Signorina Zanolini’s request. She permitted Sister Bakhita to go on temporary assignment to Venice to tell her story. Sister Josephine Bakhita was a bit confused by all the excitement over the upcoming interview. As she packed her small bag for departure, she wondered just what an interview was and how to go about it!
Bakhita left Schio for Venice on November 29, 1929. Now she understood that the topic of the interview would be her own life story. She frowned as she traveled in silence. Why would Signorina Zanolini want to publish the story of my life? she asked herself. After all, what was there to tell? Bakhita smiled. “Whatever happens,” she whispered, “the Lord will take care of everything.” And he did.
The first interview blossomed into several more. The journalist intended to craft her notes into a manuscript that would be titled A Wonderful Story. It would begin with Bakhita’s abduction at the age of seven and would end when she was received into the Canossian novitiate.
Signorina Zanolini and Sister Bakhita liked each other immediately. They both felt at ease. As the journalist asked questions, Bakhita’s memory began to express itself in sentences. As she relived her years of slavery, she recalled horrors she hadn’t thought about in years. In the brief moments when Signorina Zanolini was jotting down notes, Bakhita would lift her heart to God in prayers of gratitude for all his blessings.
A Wonderful Story was first published in serial form in 1931 in the Canossian Sisters’ mission magazine called Canossian Life. The magazine, published monthly from 1927 through 1977, had an audience of mission-minded readers who were amazed and deeply touched by Bakhita’s story. One reader, Signor Bruner, was a professional photographer from Trent, Italy. He was so captivated by Bakhita’s story that he had to meet her. He found the sister to be all that Ida Zanolini had described. He honored Bakhita the best way he could: he photographed her.
Later that year, A Wonderful Story became a popular book. In spite of the attention, Sister Josephine Bakhita remained her humble self. But this episode led her superiors to see how much good Bakhita could do by witnessing to her vocation as a religious sister and a missionary.
Because of who she was, the sister from Africa could make others aware of a whole continent of people who were still waiting for the Gospel message. This was to lead to Sister Bakhita’s next assignment. The superior asked her if she would be willing to give talks to the Congregation’s sisters, novices, students, and their families in various convents throughout Italy. Imagine! Bakhita thought to herself. Her Italian was as basic as the rest of her educational skills. How would her audiences accept her? She certainly wasn’t a professional speaker! But these worries were not important. The important point was that obedience had been asked through Bakhita’s superior. That Bakhita understood, and she was willing to do it with all her heart.
In 1933 the African sister began her new task of giving vocation talks to audiences gathered at Canossian convents all over Italy. Bakhita was fearful at first, but that didn’t hold her back. She was shy and yet open to the surprise of positive results that she knew God could bring about. Her traveling companion was a Canossian, Sister Leopolda Benetti.
Before this assignment with Bakhita, Sister Leopolda had been a missionary to mainland China for thirty-six years. Now she was just as eager to throw herself into this particular form of missionary work. Together, the two planned their presentation.
Basically, it was this: Sister Leopolda started by introducing Bakhita as “a living witness of faith.” She would then explain about the Canossian vocation and missions at home and in foreign lands. This built a sense of anticipation as the audience patiently waited for Bakhita to take the floor. She always looked so serene as the time for her talk grew near. Audiences never imagined how difficult it was for her to look out at what seemed like a sea of people, all staring at her, waiting for her words. But Bakhita did find the words. She trusted that they were what the Lord wanted her to say and what the people needed to hear.
Up and down Italy the two dedicated missionaries traveled from convent to convent. Always, an interested audience was waiting. Some groups asked Sister Bakhita to go up on stage so that she could be better seen and heard. Very simply, she would climb the stairs and face the group. What they expected was a long sermon, such as one they might hear at Sunday Mass. What they got instead were simple words that summed up the feelings of her own heart:
“Be good,
love the Lord,
pray for the unhappy souls
who do not know him yet.
What a grace it is to know God!”
Every word meant something precious to Bakhita. She had felt the weight of those words in her own life. She lived them in her soul. Imagine what went through her mind when she said: “What a grace it is to know God!” Every moment that she had lived in slavery, unloved and abused, passed painfully through her memory. In those dark times, she had not even known God directly. And then, through the Lord’s mercy, she had been touched by his infinite love. When she said, “What a grace it is to know God,” she meant it.
At one gathering someone asked Sister Bakhita, “What would you do if you met your kidnappers now?” Without hesitating, she replied, “If I were to meet those slave traders who kidnapped me and even those who tortured me, I would get down on my knees and kiss their hands because if all that had not happened, I would be neither a Christian nor a religious now.” Bakhita was a living witness to the power of forgiveness.