Blessed Isidore Bakanja
Today is the feast day of Blessed Isidore Bakanja; truly a saint of our time.
It is not every day that we celebrate a black African saint of
recent times. Most of the African saints go back to Roman times and come from North and North East Africa. They are from a time when the whole Mediterranean Basin was an area of rapid and intense growth for the Church. They include saints like St. Augustin and his mother St. Monica of Hippo, in present day Algeria, Ss. Cyril and Athanasius of Alexandra, in present day Egypt and Ss Perpetua and Felicity of modern day Tunisia. Africa continues to give saints to the church; often people who
have shown great faith and resilience in the face of much
suffering and persecution, like St. Josephine Bakhita of the Sudan,
like St. Charles Lwanga and his companions in Uganda.
Blessed Isidore Bakanja
1887-1909
Isiidore Bakanja worked as an assistant mason for white colonists in what was then the Belgian Congo and later known as Zaire. Convert, baptized 6 May 1906 at age 18 after receiving instruction from Trappists missionaries. Rosary in hand, he used any chance to share his faith; though untrained, many thought of him as a catechist. He left his native village because there were no fellow Christians.
He further worked as a domestic on a Belgian rubber plantation. Many of the Belgian agents were atheists who hated missionaries due to their fight for native rights and justice; the agents used the term "mon pere" for anyone associated with religion. Isidore encountered their hatred when he asked leave to go home. The agents refused, and he was ordered to stop teaching fellow workers how to pray: "You'll have the whole village praying and no one will work!" He was told to discard his Carmelite scapular, and when he didn't, he was flogged twice. The second time the agent tore the scapular from Isidore's neck, had him pinned to the ground, and then beaten with over 100 blows with a whip of elephant hide with nails on the end. He was then chained to a single spot 24 hours a day.
When an inspector came to the plantation, Isidore was sent to another village. He managed to hide in the forest, then dragged himself to the inspector. "I saw a man," wrote the horrified inspector, "come from the forest with his back torn apart by deep, festering, malodorous wounds, covered with filth, assaulted by flies. He leaned on two sticks in order to get near me - he wasn't walking; he was dragging himself". The agent tried to kill "that animal of mon pere", but the inspector prevented him. He took Isidore home to heal, but Isidore knew better. "If you see my mother, or if you go to the judge, or if you meet a priest, tell them that I am dying because I am a Christian."
Two missionaries who spent several days with him reported that he devoutly received the last sacraments. The missionaries urged Isidore to forgive the agent; he assured them that he already had. "I shall pray for him. When I am in heaven, I shall pray for him very much." After six months of prayer and suffering, he died, rosary in hand and scapular around his neck.
Source: www.ocarm.org
Pope John Paul II beatified him on April 24, 1994 and had the following to say about him.
In an Africa that is sorely tried by ethnic strife, your shining example is an encouragement to harmony and reconciliation among the children of the same heavenly Father. You showed brotherly love to all, without distinction of race or social class; you earned the esteem and respect of your companions, many of whom were not Christians. Thus you show us the necessary way of dialogue among men.
St. Isidore Bakanja, pray for us and for the people of Africa
