Founded to help people in need, the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary are staying beside the people of Ukraine during the war, listening, comforting, and feeding those affected by the violence. “It does not matter to me whether I die in Poland or Ukraine, because my sisters and my community are there,” said Mother Judyta Kowalska, Superior General.
By Karol Darmoros
The Little Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary are one of the 12 congregations founded by Blessed Honorat (Honoratus) Koźmiński that are still active today. They were founded during the partition period of Poland, when the Church and Poland were going through difficult times.
“We were founded during a time of crisis to help people suffering from spiritual and material crises. We do not wear a habit, we stay close to the people, to their problems and their joys,” according to Mother Judyta Kowalska, Superior General of the congregation.
The Congregation is present in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, Rome and Ukraine. In Ukraine, there are 80 sisters spread across 21 institutes, including in dangerous territories such as Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Crimea and Transnistria.
The first response to the war
When Russia launched a full-scale war on Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Mother Kowalska told the Sisters who were living in Ukraine that they could seek refuge in Poland, at any time.
“Not many of them went [to Poland]. Most stayed, and those who did come, dedicated themselves to assisting refugees at the border. The Sisters could speak the languages and translate, as well as help and comfort the people,” she recalled.
From the very beginning, the Sisters in Ukraine organised prayer and peace vigils. “They did not want to leave the people without any spiritual support. They knew they had to stay with them,” said the Superior General, who has visited the war-torn communities many times herself.
Odessa: Sr Franciszka Gumińska, surgeon
Chaplains of everyday life
“We live day by day,” said Sr. Kamila Karmaluk, Superior of the Vicariate of Saint Michael the Archangel in Ukraine. “In difficult places like Kharkiv and Odessa, the Sisters take shelter with the people in subways or cellars, when they hear gunfire. Once it’s over they return to their work in hospitals, parishes and refugee centres. The most difficult thing is comforting people who have been exhausted by war and have lost hope, and to talk to them about God.”
The Sisters provide material assistance, but their mere presence is a big help. “Sometimes we cry with them, or quietly go with them to their homes, where they have lost everything,” Sr. Kamila said.
Experiencing the war through others’ suffering
During the war, Sr. Kamila worked at the Caritas centre in Jabłonica, which took in hundreds of refugees. “I did not experience this war physically, but rather through the people’s eyes and their broken hearts. I listened to them for hours. It was like a school of crying hearts,” she recalled.
She shared the story of a young girl, whose mother had died in a foreign city, who did not even have a place to keep the urn with her mother’s ashes. “She knelt in church and said, ‘Sister, I don’t know where to bury my mother.’ Tragedies like hers, in which what tomorrow brings is unknown, are an everyday occurrence,” she stressed.
Odessa: Eucharistic celebration with Bishop Stanisław Szyrokoradiuk
Concrete help
In addition to their presence and their spiritual support, the Sisters work in practical ways. They hold monthly meetings in Kyiv for women who have lost loved ones in the war.
In Odessa, one of the Sisters, who is a surgeon, saves the lives of wounded soldiers. In addition to providing food and cleaning products to many places, the Sisters of Blessed Honorat visit the sick and the lonely.
Moreover, many of the Sisters have completed the school for military chaplains, run by Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk, Ordinary of the Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia, where they are trained to help people who have suffered from trauma and to support soldiers’ families.
Assistance from abroad
The Sisters can keep running their activities thanks to donations. Support can be sent directly to the account of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with the note “help for those in need in Ukraine.”
“We seek out those who no one will listen to—the lonely, the sick, the homeless. They are very grateful because they know that someone remembers them,” stressed Mother Kowalska.
Detailed information on how to support the Sisters’ work can be found on their website: www.honoratki.pl.
