Visitors and decades-long parishioners alike experienced an atmosphere of warmth, love and Afrocentric culture and spirituality.  

“You’re going to see something great here,” beamed Bishop John Dolan following the Founder’s Day Mass. “It’s [a church] packed with a lot of energy and a lot of spirit.” 

Amid its distinctive Afrocentric quality, St. Josephine Bakhita Mission Parish welcomes worshippers of all ethnicities, cultures and races. Sunday Masses are regularly attended by 75-90 people, with about half being African American. On Founder’s Day, it was a standing-room-only crowd.  

“All are welcomed. All are loved,” is the community slogan.  

A beloved Black Catholic saint 

Years of suffering, perseverance and, eventually, redemption — the story of St. Josephine Bakhita, which connects Black Catholics to their faith and the African-American experience whenever they meet for worship at the historic south Phoenix church that bears her name, is a compelling example of God’s healing power upon the soul and mind.  

“Her story is amazing. It’s really a beautiful story,” said Fr. Andrew McNair, pastor of St. Josephine Bakhita Mission Parish and director of Black Catholic Ministry for the Diocese of Phoenix.  

She exhibited “great generosity, humility, joy, peace and love,” added Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo Nevares. 

Located a few minutes’ drive south of the downtown area, this stucco mission building with its outside covered patio is one of the diocese’s hidden gems — a simple physical setting that comes alive every Sunday with the sights and sounds of heartfelt worship and an atmosphere of connectedness.  

“Your faith is planted, watered and nourished here, and you leave with a sense of ‘why I believe Catholicism is for me,’” said longtime parishioner Mary Skinner, who also is grand lady of the Knights of Peter Claver Ladies’ Auxiliary Court, St. Josephine Bakhita Court 369.  

“It’s a small parish, but it has a big heart,” she said proudly. “People here will welcome you, love you and adore you.”  

That heart can be traced directly to the church’s beloved namesake.  

Born in 1869, in a small village in the Darfur region of Sudan, Josephine Bakhita was seven-or-eight years old when she was kidnapped while working in agricultural fields with her family.  

Sold into slavery, she became the victim of torture by various owners, who branded her, beat her and cut her, rubbing salt in her fresh wounds — an experience that prompted her to later write, “I felt I was going to die at any moment.”  

Though at the time she did not know Christ or the redemptive nature of suffering, she bore her torment valiantly.  

She also developed an awe of the world and its Creator, expressing “a desire to see Him, know Him and pay Him homage.”  

After being sold a total of five times, Bakhita was purchased by the Italian consul in Khartoum, who two years later took her to Italy to work as a nanny for one of his colleagues. That individual, Augusto Michieli, then sent Bakhita with his daughter to a school in Venice run by the Canossian Sisters, where Bakhita felt called to learn more about the Church, and was baptized.  

When Michieli wanted to take Bakhita and his daughter back to Sudan, Bakhita refused, and the Italian courts ruled that, because the country did not recognize slavery, Bakhita could stay there, a free woman.  

She continued her love of the Church and decided to join the Canossians in 1893, and was assigned to Northern Italy, where she dedicated her life to assisting her community and teaching others to love God until her death in 1947.  

She was canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 2000.  

“The reason [St. Josephine Bakhita] resonates with African American Catholics is that she was a victim of slavery who overcame evil with goodness, and for all those people who have been hurt through the evil of human trafficking,” said Fr. McNair.  

“It’s a sad story, but one of redemption.”  

“What a beautiful example for each and every one of us to imitate in growing in the virtues that will help all of us to serve Christ in and through our brothers and sisters,” added Bishop Nevares. “It’s a beautiful expression of the Catholic faith.” 

Honoring African culture 

Inside the sanctuary, there is pan-African themed artwork, and throughout the nave, there are stained-glass windows depicting important Black Catholics, such as the venerable Fr. Augustus Tolton.  

On the nave’s rear wall is a portrait and a brief biography, where visitors can learn about figures such as Thea Bowman, a religious sister, teacher, musician, liturgist and scholar, and the first African American woman to address the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  

In the sanctuary, on the wall directly behind the main altar is a colorful painting. Its centerpiece is an acacia tree, with a crucifix in front of the tree. In the background is a bright orange and yellow depiction of the sunset over the Sahara Desert.  

“Native to Africa, the acacia is very resilient. It does well in dry, arid climates and symbolizes in so many ways the African experience and culture,” Fr. McNair said.  

On either side of the painting are two small niches within the wall, one containing a small statue of Our Lady of Africa — the Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a Black woman — and the other, St. Martin de Porres, the Peruvian friar and patron saint of interracial justice, racial harmony and mixed-race people. A Dominican, de Porres founded an orphanage in the 1500s and ministered to African slaves brought to Lima.  

Running along the top of the entire wall is a ribbon of red, black and green paint, the colors that Fr. McNair said symbolize the African continent. On the ceiling is a tri-color banner in the shape of the continent.  

“Red is for the blood shed during the liberation of the African people. Black is for the different peoples of the African continent. And green symbolizes the prosperity gained through Africa’s natural resources,” Fr. McNair explained.  

The parish plans several improvements, including Afrocentric Stations of the Cross and new flooring. 

Mass is celebrated Monday through Thursday and Sunday. The church regularly prays the Litany of St. Josephine, a devotional prayer made to obtain a particular grace or blessing. Sunday Mass is live-streamed, and the parish will soon stream its daily Mass. 

Veneration and connection 

But one of the most treasured details in St. Josephine Bakhita Mission Church is a relic.  

Encased in a golden reliquary upon a side altar in the sanctuary is a small fragment of one of St. Josephine’s bones, which visitors can venerate. It was donated by the Canossian Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor. 

Other churches throughout the diocese house relics, including St. Timothy in Mesa, Ariz., whose reliquarium regularly displays 65 first- and second-class relics, and St. Bernadette in Scottsdale, Ariz.  

There are “very few” Black Catholic churches anywhere with a first-class relic of a Black Catholic saint, Fr. McNair said.  

Bishop Dolan reflected that relics play an important role in a Catholic’s life.  

“That whole sense of personal touch with a holy person makes a difference,” said Bishop Dolan. “A person who has had a great devotion to the Lord in his or her life becomes not just a heroic example but a person who is also interceding through joining Christ at the right side of the Father to pray for us.”  

Veneration of sacred relics has been a Church practice for centuries, going all the way back to Scripture. This includes the miracle of the woman subject to bleeding who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, as well as the healings recorded in the Acts of the Apostles that occurred after individuals were passed over by St. Peter’s shadow.  

“Traditionally, when someone venerates a relic, the worshipper asks for some favor and seeks intercession of the saint,” Fr. McNair added.  

Visitors can venerate the relic of St. Josephine Bakhita at the Phoenix church from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday thru Thursday or by appointment.  

A church for all neighbors  

A 2011 survey commissioned by the National Black Catholic Congress Office and the University of Notre Dame, found that out of nearly 21,000 U.S. parishes, roughly 800 were predominantly African American, while 76-percent were predominantly White or multicultural.  

Established in 2022, St. Josephine Bakhita Mission Parish was previously known as St. Pius X and Black Catholics had gathered there for monthly Unity Masses for a number of years.  

Andy Hardin, a 30-year parishioner said the intent always was to establish a home for Black Catholic families; a place they could always return to even if they grew up there and left the area.  

“Many of us come from Black neighborhoods in other parts of the country where people mingled with each other, had Sunday neighborhood barbeques,” she recalled. “Black people don’t have that here. Understanding your own culture, you want to have someone who relates to what you are talking about.  

“I’ve been able to watch [St. Josephine Bakhita] grow to what it is now: a place where you can meet new people, enjoy new friendships and know it’s under the umbrella of Jesus. When you think about the 33 years He lived and the many people He encountered, it makes you want to try to do a little of that in your own neighborhood.   

“That’s what we’re supposed to be doing; meeting a little of Jesus in everyone we encounter.”  

Fr. McNair welcomes and encourages anyone wanting to make a pilgrimage to the church to contact the parish office at (602) 250-8770 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday.  

“We’d be more than happy to organize a pilgrimage.” 

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One of the Church’s most beloved saints, Saint Jude is the one to whom people turn when they are desperate and have tried everything else. When things seem lost or unbearable—when they seem hopeless—Saint Jude is the one to whom people often turn.

Come and experience his transformative presence. Come and see what he has for you.

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One of the Church’s most beloved saints, Saint Jude is the one to whom people turn when they are desperate and have tried everything else. When things seem lost or unbearable—when they seem hopeless—Saint Jude is the one to whom people often turn.
Come and experience his transformative presence. Come and see what he has for you.

Public veneration of Saint Jude Relics begins: 2:00 PM
Special Mass celebrated in Saint Jude’s honor: 6:30 PM
Public veneration ends: 10:00 PM

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) — As Britain’s King Charles III walks into Westminster Abbey for his coronation, he will walk behind a processional cross containing a relic of Christ’s cross given to the king by Pope Francis.

“The fragments of the relic of the true cross were donated by the Holy See in early April, through the apostolic nunciature, to His Majesty King Charles III, supreme governor of the Church of England, as an ecumenical gesture on the occasion of the centenary of the Anglican Church in Wales,” Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office said April 20.

A Vatican official said the two fragments in the coronation cross came from a relic preserved in the Lipsanoteca Room of the Vatican Museums.

The fragments now are under glass in the center of the coronation cross, which is made of recycled silver bullion.

Anglican Archbishop Andrew John of Wales blessed the cross during a service April 19.

The Anglican Church in Wales, which refers to the cross as the Cross of Wales, said it is inscribed on the back with words, in Welsh, from the last sermon of St. David, a sixth-century [Catholic] bishop and patron saint of Wales: “Be joyful. Keep the faith. Do the little things.”

King Charles has given the cross to the Christians of Wales, and after the coronation it will be shared by the Anglican and Catholic churches there.

“With a sense of deep joy, we embrace this cross, kindly given by King Charles, and containing a relic of the true cross, generously gifted by the Holy See,” said Catholic Archbishop Mark O’Toole of Cardiff in a statement published on the Church in Wales website.

The cross “is not only a sign of the deep Christian roots of our nation but will, I am sure, encourage us all to model our lives on the love given by our savior, Jesus Christ,” Archbishop O’Toole said.

Chris Trott, the British ambassador to the Holy See, said on Twitter that “we are deeply moved and grateful to Pope Francis for this extraordinary gift.”

The gift of the relic, he said, reflects the strength of the relationship between the Holy See and Great Britain, a “relationship that developed over the course of the reign of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who met five popes!”

Msgr. Ervin Lengyel, secretary of the Vatican nunciature in London, tweeted: “In a significant ecumenical gesture, the Cross of Wales will incorporate a relic of the true cross, the personal gift of Pope Francis to His Majesty the King to mark the coronation.”

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PHOENIX — Sister Maria Kim Bui, a Daughter of St. Paul, has been on a leave of absence from her community since 2021 to take care of her ailing mother. Her father died from COVID in January of that year.

When the Diocese of Phoenix hosted the relics of St. Bernadette – the visionary of the Marian apparition of Lourdes associated with miraculous healings – Sister Maria Kim went to venerate her fellow religious sister at St. Juan Diego Church in Chandler July 31.

“Coming to venerate the relics of St. Bernadette is just so special because it’s a reminder that this life is — with all of our illnesses and sorrows — it’s never the end,” said the religious sister who grew up attending Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Tempe. “Heaven is always closer to us than we can possibly imagine, and really all the joy that awaits us in heaven, that’s what truth really is.”

This was the first time that official relics from the Our Lady of Lourdes Sanctuary in France have been on tour in the United States, beginning in Miami on April 7 and ending in Granada Hills, California, Aug. 4.

“The Lourdes water is something that most everyone connects with Lourdes because of its known healings. So, we draw Lourdes water, and we share it with God’s people everywhere we go, and we do a virtual pilgrimage,” said Deacon Dan Revetto, vice president of the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers — the organization that, along with the Order of Malta, accompanied the relics during their U.S. tour. “The water that is shared today is from the sanctuary in Lourdes. Every diocese along this tour has received 20 liters of Lourdes water.”

Deacon Revetto, who also serves at St. John Baptist de la Salle Parish in Granada Hills in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, accompanied the relics in Arizona and California. He also offered a virtual pilgrimage that included slides with a presentation, along with an opportunity for the faithful to bless themselves with Lourdes water and to touch rocks carved from the grotto.

“The Bishop of Lourdes wanted to carve out a little bit more room inside the grotto so that pilgrims in wheelchairs could easily move inside the grotto cave itself,” said Deacon Revetto. “When he did that, he created small rocks, which he entrusted to our apostolate to share with God’s people throughout the world.

“We want to share with the faithful — as close as we can — the experience of being in Lourdes [and] touching the Grotto rock of Massabielle is important,” he added.

“Many, many miracles of healing have happened, countless millions; we know from the millions of pilgrims who have traveled to Lourdes who are spiritually healed,” said Father Kline in his homily. “I don’t know of a greater physical healing than to be raised from the dead. That’s probably about as big as it comes. That was Lazarus’ experience of healing.”

The pastor also noted that in Martha’s grief, she recognized the healing power found in Jesus. In their frustration, Martha and Mary also desire to be healed from grief.

“That is something that all of us can relate to. We feel let down, perhaps, at times when the Lord doesn’t grant us the requests of our heart, our prayers in the way that we want them to be answered,” he said. “Perhaps He wants to grant us a healing that we’ve been praying for, but it is in His most excellent way the Lord will do that. We bring them to Him, just asking for Him and trusting in the promise of His healing mercy.”

Steve Jajou, a member of Mar Abraham Chaldean Catholic Parish, venerated the relics along with his wife, May. Requiring the use of a wheelchair, Steve also sought physical and spiritual healing.

“I believe in miracles, and I believe in saints’ power of interceding for us,” he said.

Father Michael Passo, FSSP, pastor of Mater Misericordiae Parish in downtown Phoenix, brought several of his parishioners to Scottsdale to venerate the relics, including young girls who are a part of the parish’s “Helpers of the Immaculate Heart.”

“St. Bernadette was the one that Our Lady — the Immaculate Conception — came to, so, we wanted to come honor Our Lady through St. Bernadette and reverence those relics,” he said.

“It’s a reminder to us that we need to be open to God’s will and continue to serve as instruments of giving the Gospel message to the world.”

“We happened to find out that the relics would be here this weekend, today, so, we made the trek over,” John said. “St. Bernadette leads us more deeply into that Marian dimension of the heart of Christ and an encounter with God.”

Those venerating the pilgrim relics had the opportunity to receive a plenary indulgence, provided they met the Church’s other requirements.

“It’s a beautiful opportunity for us to experience the faith of the faithful in our church and the power of God’s mercy and love for us as He shows to us in His saints and through our Blessed Mother,” Father Kline told the Sun.

Charlene Abeyta, a St. Bernadette parishioner, has long had a devotion to her parish’s patroness, who is also her Confirmation saint.

“I just wanted to be in the same room with her,” she said. “I felt her presence with me.”

The next day, at the Saturday evening vigil Mass, the Very Rev. Dan McBride, St. Juan Diego pastor and dean for the East Deanery, recounted in his homily the trials St. Bernadette went through.

“She was poked and prodded, and they tested her for every possible thing. They wanted to know, was she crazy? Did she make this stuff up? Is she just having visions because she had some mental illness? The newspapers reported on her, and they wanted to say the most horrible things because they wanted to prove that she was a fraud, that she was making this up. They wanted to prove that,” he said. “Well, 170 years later, they still haven’t proved that she was wrong. … Beginning in those moments — when she said, ‘These waters will be healing waters,’ — millions of people since that time have been going to Lourdes seeking healing.”

“She heard these words of the Gospel, and she took them to heart,” Father McBride said. “The treasures in heaven are far more valuable and far more permanent than any other kind of treasure.”

For Sister Maria Kim, Bernadette serves as a role model both as a religious and as a caretaker, helping her recognize the ultimate healing is Christ’s mercy.

“Jesus heals us in our prayer all the time, especially through the Mass,” she said. “Coming to these types of things, where we pray for maybe more extraordinary healings, reminds us that God is healing us all the time. That’s what He likes to do with His mercy — He likes to heal us.”

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Here is a schedule for the day:
• 8:30am-9:30am – Holy Mass with Rite of Welcome
• 9:30am-11am – Confessions and Veneration of the Relics of St. Bernadette
• 11am-1pm – Lourdes Virtual Pilgrimage Experience – To receive a Plenary Indulgence
• 1pm-2pm – Divine Mercy Chaplet and Litany of St. Bernadette and Veneration of the Relics of St. Bernadette
• 3pm-4pm – Rosary
• 5:00pm-6pm – Healing Mass including Sprinkling Rite with Lourdes Water – Anointing of the Sick to follow (for those eligible)
• 6:00pm – Farewell Celebration

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MIAMI (CNS) — The relics of St. Bernadette, the Marian visionary of Lourdes, France, will tour the United States for the first time.

The visit will begin in South Florida at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Miami, with a morning welcome Mass April 7. The next day the relics will visit St. Bernadette Church in Hollywood, Florida, then return to Our Lady of Lourdes Church.

On April 11, Monday of Holy Week, Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami will celebrate an evening Mass at the church, which will be followed by a candlelight procession. The relics will stay at Our Lady of Lourdes until April 18, Easter Monday, when a multilingual farewell Mass will be celebrated.

The relics will go to two other Florida dioceses, Palm Beach and St. Petersburg, and then zigzag across the country to 23 other dioceses, visiting 34 churches, cathedrals and shrines. The last stop is St. Bernadette Church in Los Angeles July 31-Aug. 4.

The full schedule of the relics’ U.S. tour can be found at stbernadetteusa.org.

“I saw a great opportunity here, particularly with the current state of our world,” said Msgr. Kenneth Schwanger, pastor of Miami’s Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, who was instrumental in making this tour happen. “I started calling parishes across the country with the names of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette to make them aware of this grace,” he said, and the result is the upcoming tour.

For the relics to visit, he explained, Archbishop Wenski had to make a request to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes (Sanctuaire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes) in France, which he did so over three years ago, Msgr. Schwanger told the Florida Catholic, Miami’s archdiocesan newspaper. “But with COVID, all requests were delayed.”

Around the time Miami’s request was granted, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes expressed an interest in a national tour.

The Vatican has granted a plenary indulgence for those visiting the relics during the tour. During the Miami stay, Masses will be offered daily at Our Lady of Lourdes along with “le geste de l’eau,” the water of Lourdes.

On Feb. 11, 1858, a “lady in white” began her 18 visits to a poor, uneducated 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in the obscure town of Lourdes in southern France — population 4,100 — at the Grotto of Massabielle. Over the course of six months, asked Bernadette to come and visit her.

“I do not promise you the happiness of this world but of the other,” the “lady in white” told Bernadette, who became the messenger to the local community, the priests and the bishop of Tarbes, France. She would appear 18 times to the young girl.

On the 16th apparition, Bernadette asked the “lady” her name, to which she replied: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Father Dominique Peyramale, the local priest, was immediately convinced that Bernadette was communicating with Mary, for neither Bernadette, nor anyone in the local community, could have known that some years earlier, in 1854, this theological doctrine was declared by the church as dogma stating that Mary, through God’s grace, “was conceived free from the stain of original sin through her role as the Mother of God.”

The priest brought Mary’s message, that a chapel should be built in that spot, to the bishop of Tarbes, who three years later confirmed the apparition was indeed Mary.

Her instructions become a reality with the building of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, the washing with and drinking of the water of Lourdes, and pilgrims coming to participate in the nightly candlelight processions.

Bernadette left Lourdes to live out her religious vocation within the community of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers in 1866. She saw the chapel completed but never returned to Lourdes. She died in 1879, was proclaimed blessed in 1925 and was canonized in 1933.

Her body, exhumed in April 1925 for her beatification, was found to be uncorrupted. Fragments of the fifth and sixth vertebrae were removed and reserved for veneration by the faithful.

“Our Lady of Lourdes Miami is a reflection of Our Lady of Lourdes France,” said Msgr. Schwanger. “We have our own Hospitalité de Miami, a group within the diocese that is associated with the Hospitalité Notre Dame de Lourdes.”

These two organizations work together to organize two archdiocesan pilgrimages to Lourdes each year, in June and September. “Their service helps to make each pilgrimage a grace-filled encounter with the healing touch of Jesus through the intercession of his mother,” Msgr. Schwanger said.

On the 11th of each month, Our Lady of Lourdes also hosts either a eucharistic procession and benediction or a rosary candlelight procession, alternating every other month. In Lourdes, France, these are held daily.

“People who are sick and their caregivers from across the diocese come to Lourdes, Miami, for healing, much in the same way they would go to Lourdes, France. (Because) not all of us are able to travel to Lourdes, France,” Msgr. Schwanger said. “The Hospitalité de Miami would be happy to share its experience and help other dioceses set up their own organization to make annual pilgrimages.”

Visiting St. Bernadette through her relics while they are in the United States is a rare opportunity.

“St. Bernadette continues to be a vehicle through which Mary points the way to her son, Jesus Christ, through this relics tour,” said Msgr. Schwanger. “It’s an affirmation that the Lord attends to everyone and everyone has an opportunity to be healed and, in turn, to bring healing and peace to the world. And don’t we all need healing in one way or another?”

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