An interesting piece in the Catholic news site, EWTN news, concerning the speech given recently in New York by Ukrainian bishop, Pavlo Honcharuk of Kharkiv, a city near to the border with Russia, which has suffered more than most because of the ongoing Russian invasion.
Bishop Honcharuk described the struggles faced by Ukrainians at the present time, including the obliteration of power grids, bitterly cold temperatures, and ongoing drone and missile strikes.
“We are in the middle of a tempest of suffering and pain,” he said. “In this sense, we’re always expecting or waiting for death, but in the midst of all that, we are trying to be able to love and to help others.”
The bishop told of how he survives, by keeping busy with the demands of his job, from traveling to dangerous places to take funeral services, to thawing frozen generators: “If you were to stop and sit and look at it, and try to deepen what is happening, you wouldn’t be able to stand it. There are many instances where people lose their minds, they close in on themselves.” This, he said, “is the most terrible thing.”
He described how Christ’s love compels him to remain with his people and having faith in God is what brings peace. “The beginning of war is in the hearts of men,” the bishop said. “When there is no God, a person does not feel like someone. He has to prove all the time to himself and to others that he is someone. He exploits everything to show that he is someone.” But a person’s encounter with God is where peace begins.
Read the full story here.
Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, and all who have lost loved ones in this bitter conflict.
Picture above: Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk of Kharkiv