The life of our community usually begins according to a fixed order of the day, but it sometimes happens that war makes adjustments to it. Therefore, we start the day depending on the night we have lived … sometimes at 3 a.m., sometimes at 4 a.m., when we are woken by the night alarm warning of an attack. The shelter for us is always the chapel. With the windows tightly shut and the flame of a candle lit in front of the altar, we implore God to keep people safe and the danger away.
The first to go out to her duties is Sr. Julia, sacristan at the Pallottine Fathers’ Divine Mercy Parish, who prepares the altar for the 7 o’clock Mass and participates in it. The other Sisters have meditation and at 7.30 a.m. pray Lauds. Then we have breakfast together with Sr. Julia, after which each Sister takes up her duties. We usually attend Mass at 9.00 a.m. or 6.00 p.m.
Sr. Julia Wolska is the coordinator of the communities in Ukraine and regularly attends meetings for the Major Superiors in Zhytomyr. She is also the superior of the community, so she looks after the house and the needs of the sisters, as well as those who come to us for help. When the Russians launched full-scale hostilities in Ukraine in February 2022, Sr. Julia, as a volunteer, together with the whole community, actively helped the military and people who needed help. We distributed medicines, food, clothes and nutrition for small children that were delivered to us. For the first two weeks of the war, we cooked meals for 300 military men in our community from home supplies.
Sr. Galina Szpilowa is a catechist at Divine Mercy Parish. She also serves the parish as secretary, keeps the parish chronicle, prepares announcements and makes information showcases. She has 11 hours of catechesis for children from 4 to 15 years old and for adults who are preparing for the Sacrament of Baptism, First Communion and Matrimony. More than 100 students attend catechesis in the 2023 school year. In addition, Sr. Galina runs three Rosary Circles in the parish for pre and primary school pupils and for teenagers. Each year, she organises and runs parish summer camps, retreats and holiday trips for children and young people, the All Saints’ Ball in the parish, the visit of St. Nicolas and many other events. Other sisters help her in that.
Sr. Jadwiga Puchalska is responsible for the community of disabled people and for visiting the sick in the parish. Every first Sunday of the month she leads a formation meeting for this community in the cathedral, and during the summer holidays she organises a recreation and formation camp for them, usually at the Caritas Centre in Zaryczany. She is assisted in this by lay volunteers. She also regularly visits the sick in their homes. In the community she cooks lunch for the sisters twice a week.
Sr. Katarzyna Golub has been part of our community since September this year. She took over the leadership of the UAC community from Sr. Julia, with whom she holds a formation meeting in the parish once a month. She takes care of the house, serves the community with her sewing skills and prepares lunch for the sisters four times a week.
In the evening we meet in the chapel for vespers at 7.30 p.m. when Sr. Julia is back from the church, and then have supper together. We also pray rosary either in our chapel or with the parishioners in the church.
Every day we try to read the signs of the times in the concrete situation in which we live and to realise our Pallottine charism. We accompany the people around us whose family members, often very young, have been killed or maimed in the war defending their homeland. We also do what we can to assist the children who are the most vulnerable. It is providential that in the parish there is a lady psychologist who provides therapy for children in a specially arranged room with whom Sr. Galina collaborates. We implore our Father in heaven to keep our country safe and to put an end to the war which brings so much damage and takes so many lives.
Sr. Galina Szpilowa, SAC
Photos were taken by: Anna Wolska, Fr. Walery Dubyna
