MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8
Saint Josephine Bakhita

At just 7 years old, she was kidnapped in Sudan and sold several times to the highest bidders, enduring physical and emotional suffering. This tragic experience even made her forget her real name: Bakhita, meaning “Fortunate,” was ironically given to her by her kidnappers. As a slave, she experienced great cruelty and pain. Bought in 1882 by an Italian consul who brought her to Italy, she had the opportunity to meet the Canossian Sisters of Venice. On December 7, 1893, she entered the novitiate at the Catechumens’ House in Venice. Three years later, on December 8, she made her first profession in Verona.
When she returned to Venice, the people of the neighborhood celebrated her; they no longer simply called her Bakhita but “Mother Moretta.” She was humble and quiet, and spent her days in the girls’ workshop, knitting and embroidering. She was diligent in obedience, and the Mothers who were with her during that period testified to her fidelity to the rule and her generous charity. In 1902, she was transferred to Schio, where she was first put in charge of the kitchen, then the sacristy, and finally the porter’s lodge.
She lived in the Congregation for over fifty years. She was an open, cheerful religious sister who was always smiling. One of her fellow sisters particularly emphasized her goodness and her ability to be optimistic: “She was always true to herself, always smiling… I never saw her do anything extraordinary. Her goodness was extraordinary… I remember her ability to always see the good side of people and things. I never heard her speak ill of anyone. She excused the Sisters’ faults by saying: ‘She must have forgotten, she probably didn’t notice; it must have been a natural impulse… Just as everyone has a different face, there is also diversity among brothers and sisters! So the Lord also gives different graces.’” She spent long hours praying before the tabernacle. In the last years of her life, she suffered serious health problems that forced her to use a wheelchair. She was accompanied to church, where she spent hours in adoring contemplation. She died on February 8, 1947. Bakhita’s tomb was soon besieged by the faithful, who turned to her and were thus able to experience the surprising results of her intercession. Saint Bakhita continues even today to intercede, help, and resolve the insoluble problems of those who turn to her and of those who do not yet know her. Let us rediscover this extraordinary figure and confidently invoke her intercession.

For further reflection:
• Praying and living the Word with Saint Josephine Bakhita

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11
Blessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes

Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, a girl named Bernadette Soubirous had eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the Massabielle grotto. The message Mary brings is a call to conversion, prayer, and charity. Miracles and the unceasing pilgrimages from all over the world are part of the past and present history of the Sanctuary of Lourdes. Its fundamental vocation is to be a place where people encounter God in prayer, a place where they come to understand clearly what service to our brothers and sisters means. The sick and suffering, in particular, feel embraced by the Virgin Mary and find that peace in their hearts that helps them through the trials they must face. And precisely in memory of Lourdes, on the initiative of Pope John Paul II, the World Day of the Sick has been celebrated throughout the world on this date since 1993. In his message for the 29th World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis emphasizes that “the experience of illness makes us feel our vulnerability and, at the same time, our innate need for others. Our condition as creatures becomes even clearer, and we experience our dependence on God in an evident way. When we are ill, uncertainty, fear, and sometimes dismay overwhelm the mind and heart; we find ourselves in a situation of powerlessness, because our health does not depend on our abilities or on our ‘striving’ (cf. Mt 6:27). Illness imposes a question of meaning, which in faith is addressed to God: a question that seeks a new meaning and a new direction for existence, and that sometimes may not immediately find an answer.” We entrust to Our Lady of Lourdes our brothers and sisters who are experiencing illness. In this very difficult time, devastated by the pandemic, we implore her motherly intercession to come to our aid.

For further reflection:
• Lourdes. The month of February with Mary
• Lourdes. Novenas to the Virgin Mary
• Lourdes. Rosary to the Virgin Mary
• Lourdes. The story. The stories.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11
Beginning of the novena to Saints Francis and Jacinta Marto

Today we begin the novena to Saints Francis and Jacinta Marto, the two siblings aged just 9 and 7 who, together with their cousin Lucia dos Santos, experienced the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima from May 13, 1917, until October 13 of that year.
Francis and Jacinta were canonized by Pope Francis on May 13, 2017, on the centenary of the apparitions of Fatima. In the decree on the heroic virtues of the shepherd children of Fatima, the Church affirms that children can fully walk the path of holiness. Let us imitate their example and invoke their intercession with faith.

For further reflection:
• The apparitions of Fatima
• The apparitions of Fatima between history and wonder