By a nun of a Benedictine Abbey in Ukraine – Written on 27 April 2023

Today is a war... this we can mention instead of a calendar date.

I will describe our experience of faith somewhat in the form of the Way of the Cross, perhaps not sufficiently consistent or typical. We go through it together with Christ, because every war is like a long Good Friday. We go through different stations, each one individually in our struggle and exhaustion, as a community and as a nation, so we will share here the testimonies of various people we met on the way.

Presently and throughout the last year, on the example of present-day feats and sufferings of ordinary people, we can see those spiritual truths and things that can be found in spiritual literature. It will not be possible to separate the text from feelings, as well as to abstract this experience, so this is not an academic article. And although we are in the liturgical period of the Resurrection, we contemplate the integrity of the greatest Mystery of our faith.

 PRAYER IS LIKE A STRUGGLE

The Gospel describes Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane as a struggle, an agony to the point of sweating blood.

This is the first place of our struggle: to pray when it seems impossible. As one military commander said: "If our faith does not fall, we cannot be taken by force."

In fact, the first was the struggle to persevere in prayer. Despite the sense of desolation and the cry of incomprehension. Despite the sirens and air strikes, despite the unknown of the next moment, as if we remained in motion through inertia, we continued the common prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours and later realized how this prayer kept us. It gave inner strength and a sense of peace. We sang psalms in the kitchen without lights, we stuck together, and no one panicked. Even though the incoming news completely shattered us, as there was no certainty that the country would survive, we sang a psalm in the bomb shelter from memory. We continued the Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. The continuous prayer did not last because we made it. It was not at all like usual, when we need to send an hour, formally, and that's it. It seemed that then everything turned into a prayer. Usual movements, looks, everything was imbued as the state and essence of our being, vigilance, it was some completely different format of prayer, non-verbal and unforced.

Like sweat and tears dripping on the ground, it was a prayer of pain, a prayer of feeling desolate and disappointed that no one is around. It's easy to fall asleep if you don't make someone else's suffering your own.

 THE TRUTH IS CONDEMNED

The Lord was condemned for the truth, the kind of truth that awakens and makes you think. Roman laws and prosecutors could not protect the innocent. The war is like a terrible judgment falling on the entire world order. It is a judgment on the inability of people to be brothers to each other, the uselessness of brotherhood. The UN, various organizations, their declarations and conventions, where are they? They were created to say "never more wars"...

We have no one to appeal to, no institution on this earth. It is the outrage and shame of the whole world that a terrorist state continues to be a member of organizations whose main purpose is to preserve peace. It seems that the crowd continues to choose Barabbas...Today, as then...

We can cry out and rely only on God and on those who are people of God and peace. It took long months for defense systems after much pleading. Previous wars have taught humanity nothing. No one can protect the lives of even the smallest. Genocide and terror are carried out in the same Europe. This is a betrayal of values and memory.

FAITH IS WOUNDED

There were moments when it seemed that the Lord really left this land. I don't even know if I could talk about faith or God's love for these people.

Knowing the horrors that Russians have done and are still doing to innocent civilians, including rape and murder or women and children, it was difficult for me to speak about God's love for them. Jesus falls to the ground wounded and scourges to be with us, to be among ruins and ashes. His humble and quiet suffering helps to understand the secret of inner strength, gives the strength to go on and to move within the framework of filial obedience.

I realize that our faith is not for ourselves; it lives when it is passed onto others, but not with sermons or some manifestation of piety. We understand faith as a form of detachment from ourselves in order to be embraced by others, the doomed and oppressed. When there is so much violence around, it forces everyone to question more and more intensely who God is. Where is he?

There is an acute need for faith and authentic spirituality.

FACES

I remember how in the first months of the war, our monastery turned into a headquarters for the distribution of humanitarian aid, and one day we received a lot of shoes. We decided to give a portion to the military and our boys in the trenches who did not have the opportunity to change their boots for two weeks. Through video communication, they selected the sizes to send. A face with shining eyes under a helmet in a half-dark basement is firmly etched in my memory. Eyes glistening with tears, even at the first moment, are somewhat confused and moved by what the nun sees. An incredible feeling accompanies them.

Different faces passed through our monastery here, faces through which we saw all the horror of war because their eyes saw atrocities, shelling, and enemy armored personnel carriers in front of them. Some of them escaped through the evacuation corridors, some went through the hell of Mariupol. Many of them could be touched as a relic of the cross.

Then I realized that faith is something more than my strength It is an act that transcends this terrifying reality. But I can continue to love, I can wipe these faces of tears and horror, I can give them repose, someone just to hug. I can allow these faces of suffering to be engraved in my heart. I didn't feel capable of anything else. I continued to be silent and not understand God and to investigate the faces of those whom He sent, as if they were living icons. Living icons of the Crucified.

CYRENIANS

Volunteers from Poland often stayed with us for the night. I once asked a young man, the father of three small children, why he regularly visits the most dangerous points near the front, delivering aid. He did not hesitate to answer that they were here with us, side by side, so that the enemy would not threaten us, so that we could stand and win. They are with us so that we are not afraid.

This "Simon of Cyrene" is one of the thousands who are here with us who carry the crosses of these people, bring them everything they need for life.

There were many kind words from a distance through letters, compassion, and donations, and some dared to come and share the air of war with us, share the siren sounds, and breathe all this grief directly. We are especially grateful for these gestures of presence, at the distance of an outstretched arm, when they could carry some part of this journey with us and gave to us a feeling of support and relief.

FALLS

We have already prayed so much that we feel devastated by hopelessness after each new strike, the fall of a high-rise building, and new mass casualties. A displaced woman wails to the entire monastery after learning of her son's death because of a rocket striking Sloviansk. No one can console her, she cries out to God, asking why did he let this happen. These people are truly destroyed and weighed down by the burden of the cross.

We remember the moment when the news came about the death of the young nephew of one of our sisters. Their whole family and his pregnant wife were here.

His mother would go out into the yard, fall on the snow, wail in pain, lie motionless for a long time, and then get up and say: "Well, I have faith, but what about those mothers who don't have it?" In her prayers, she asked God that this pain, even if it breaks her heart, would end with her and not touch anyone else. In this way, she simultaneously made a sacrifice of her suffering. Faith, even the strongest, unfortunately does not relieve pain. Faith is not anesthesia for reality; it is a complete and conscious act of experience.

BETWEEN TWO ROBBERS

The mocking words "Save yourself" are a temptation to think first about yourself, to save yourself first of all. If everyone thinks about themselves and their own salvation, who will save the world, who will be left to save from the rubble, and who will give their lives to stop aggression and prevent evil from advancing further?

These questions were swirling in my head when we left our mother monastery when there was an offer to leave the country and be safe. Our hearts were breaking, and everyone unanimously decided to stay in the country.

At one point, you somehow feel that everyone has become your family here, you feel a great community of brothers and sisters, a sense of belonging...

A soldier at a roadblock unexpectedly asked if we are all right on the trip or if we needed help with a sympathetic look. While having our car serviced, the mechanic offered lunches for everyone free of charge. There were so many cars that residents brought ready-made food to the cars in kilometer-long traffic jams in the direction of the border. All this is so spontaneous yet organized. There are so many sensitive and beautiful people in this country. Everyone began to serve and give themselves and everything they had for others. It was an incredible experience to witness how the evil that came upon us extracted the best virtues from ourselves.

Without a doubt, this war is unjust and brings tremendous losses, but it is also an opportunity and occasion for spiritual, personal, moral, and Christian growth, as well as for other peoples, people of good will, who stood on the side of good and extended a helping hand. A time when everyone can do more than they could in normal times, give more of themselves. War shows us the truth about ourselves, who we really are, how much humanity we have. We see it in the heroism of soldiers, volunteers, medics, rescuers, technical workers, everywhere around.

WHY?

This dying cry tears through the thickness of ages and generations and makes its way to our ears today. "God, why have you forsaken me?" is the cry of thousands of mothers, widows, those who are expelled from their homes, and those who find themselves under occupation.

It was still a frosty March. We had no more space. All the rooms and corridors of the monastery were full. There were no mattresses. Late in the evening there was a knock on the door with a request to accept at least women and children ready to sleep on the floor. We only found sleeping bags and cardboard, but no ready blankets or beds. However, they felt very well and safe and stayed with us for three months until the liberation of their city. They didn't know where they were going. They just saw the monastery and knocked.

We agreed to accept in order not to kill this last hope, to show that God has not abandoned them, and to give them a feeling of being embraced and cared for. They didn't ask about good conditions; they were looking for answers in their despair. They were looking for acceptance.

In St. Benedict's vision, the monastery is the House of God - a place of acceptance, where everyone can find everything, they need, find hope in a good God. Benedictine spirituality teaches us to see our daily reality as a permanent portal between heaven and earth, as the good hands of the Father into which we can fall.

THE TOMB

More than a year has passed since the beginning of the invasion. We want to finally turn away from the place of death where parents bury their children and flags fly on graves. There are now so many of these avenues that every city, every street, and every bridge have become memorials. There are no more tears in sorrow, the silence of Great Saturday reigns.

Especially silent are the processions when the body of a fallen soldier is carried. In our country, it is customary to meet the motorcade by bending the knees and shining a lamp. Some of the foreigners thought that it was a procession of the Blessed Sacrament and were very moved to learn that we pay respect to the bodies of heroes who died in battle. The mystery of the Church as God's body is present in the life of a Christian, a martyr who gives his life for others. It is not connected with any ceremony; it is a spontaneous understanding of our faith in the Risen One. That is why there is such respect and understanding of the dignity of their remains, an understanding of life that breaks out of normal boundaries, because their lives were sacrificed for something that they consider more valuable than life itself. We draw from their faith, personally as people and as nuns.

They did not plan to make this sacrifice, but they did not hesitate. It is a challenge for us and a question whether I can do something similar in my place...

TESTIMONY BY WOUNDS

While there were many witnesses, women disciples were not believed because it sounded too improbable. Jesus entrusts his Easter message through our form of life – the dimension of sacrifice and resurrection.

He entrusts the good news to those who have touched and felt the living pulse of His heart. No, it's not holes, nails, or bullet holes. it's a place where life spilled out.

His wounds are still alive and open today.

Faith in the resurrected person is tactile, and brotherhood will be born precisely from the meeting after the resurrection. We don't succumb to victimhood. One day we will stop crying and start doing what is necessary. We will bandage the wounds, bring flowers, and roll away all the stones of the ruins. On the field of spilled blood, wheat will grow again. Bread will grow which will be delivered to different countries of the world and will become food for the hungry. Flour will become Eucharistic bread.