Currently sister Jonasza Bukowska still travels from Odessa to Poland – and back. She carries people, food, medicines, cleansing agents, nappies. On her way, it is a thousand kilometers one way after all, she stops over at the place of her grandfather’s previously unknown family. For her grandfather was only of the siblings who, in 1945, decided to go “to the West”. Now sister Jonasza halts in Gródek Pdolski, half-way through, receives her strength in a warm, homely atmosphere and looks for room in a fully-packed car as the family desperately wants to endow her, at least with a small sack of potatoes, at least some groats.

And everything comes in handy there at her house, because although they are two of them – in a religious congregation – they cook thick soup for forty people every day. And how come they got such a big pot? – A few months before the war, we decided to make a surprise for the parish fair cook something tasty – laughs the nun. – So we invested in this pot. And now it's perfect! And every day we experience the miracle of the multiplication of soup, because there is enough even for fifty!

At a press conference sister Jonasza moved even the toughest guys and after all the journalist doesn’t get emotional promptly, let alone bursting into tears. By the end of January 2022 she arrived in Poland to visit her father after he had a surgery and to benefit from a parish retreat. She put her cell phone in deposit and as a joke told others not to hassle her and start the phone only if the war broke out. On February 24 she was called from chapel because of the war and shelling of Odessa.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE Next day she turned up at the Ukrainian consulate where the clerk wouldn’t believe the nun was Polish and wished to go to Ukraine, in the opposite direction than everyone did. She left on March 4.

– I’m in my place there – she says. – After all, my home is over there. People come to us with some many affairs that I couldn’t once even imagine: they know we’ll provide them help. And truly I thank God the most not for always having some food to give away to eat but that I fear no more.

Joanasza Bukowska is a sister of Saint Elizabeth which is a congregation that had gone through monstrously hard turn of fate: recently, in June there was held the beatification process of ten Silesian Elisabethans from Silesian monasteries who were tortured to death by Soviet soldiers in 1945. – When I experienced this beatification, I realized that we, too, in our Ukrainian home, are facing such a challenge: how not to be afraid and to continue serving people, as our vocation calls us to do. I am sure they are watching over us from heaven” says sister. Jonasza.

War is war, it changes everything. The war makes people search God and how to get in touch with him. Nobody ponder over whether the nun can distribute the Holy Communion, i.e. be an extraordinary dispenser – actually she can, it’s not forbidden by the Canon Law even in Poland.

Apparently it’s no secret – although no one specifically publicizes it – that there were priests who secured the Blessed Sacrament, hid their documents, closed the parish houses, and left. A story happened in Black Sea, too, that their priest couldn’t sustain it. So they came to the tiny house of the Elizabethan Sisters to pray together and benefit from their spiritual consolation, their faith and hope. The bishop allowed the sisters to give Holy Communion, to have consecrated hosts in the chapel, they survived – somehow.

There is nothing untrue in the stories told by sister Jonasza Bukowska’s. Just facts and accounts – over two 200 days of war, which has already entered the ninth month. In her book “Sisters of Hope. Unknown stories of heroic women fighting in Ukraine” the he famous reporter Agata Puścikowska wrote them down – the stories of sisters from 22 religious congregations operating in Ukraine/ Puścikowska is the author of excellent books about Polish brave nuns (“Wojenne siostry” – “War Sisters”, “Siostry z powstania” – “Sisters from the Uprising” and “Waleczne z gór” – “The Brave from the Mountains” ) and a mother to five children, so she is even more sensitive to the fate of families and children.

– I didn’t plan this book, I’d rather it wasn’t but I had to write it – says Agata and stresses that everything in this books has really happened. – Even the nun on the cover is no anonymous figure from the Internet but sister Małgorzata Stankiewicz, a Capuchiness from Krasyliv, cellist and speech therapist.

Right after the outbreak of the war, three Capuchinesses from Krasyliv said independently from one another “we are staying”. They look for refugees from the East, take care of the displaced children, cook and distribute food and clothes, search around for doctors, conduct prayers and Bible meetings. – And sister Małgosia played with teachers from the music school who gave a concert of patriotic folk music and it was precisely a cellist that was missing – says the author. The cellist sister did not come to the press conference, but you can meet her on the blog.

Instead sister Teresa Matyja from the Salesian congregation appeared, for whom this is the second war she has experienced while working in the East. The first was in Georgia, where sister Teresa ended up in July 2008, after years of working in Odessa and studying in Rome. She remembers the fear – her own and that of those around her, uncertainty, difficulty finding food. And the desperate situations of defenseless children that you had to “shield” from the war, draw their attention to something else. Everything is useful in Ukraine now.

Also four years of experience from Moscow, where the Order sent the sister in 2014. She ran a sacristy in the Moscow cathedral, prepared adults for baptism and other sacraments, including Orthodox people who wanted to become Catholics. – Now I regard that experience as a blessing – says sister Teresa. – Their letters protect me now from careless assessment of the whole nation, from hatred. Not all support the war, although the terror that prevails there prevents them from resisting and outright protest.

Sister Teresa returned to Odessa in 2018. Three Salesian sisters, two from Poland and one from Slovakia, ran a dormitory for students. Their contacts are now paying off very much: among the graduates there are, e.g., doctors who are always ready to help. When the war broke out, a lot of work was done: cooking for more and more people in need, daily work at the Caritas post, working with DPs, distributing aid from abroad, housework, translations. Daily prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. And sleep is not always possible, because there are many alarms. – Do not give in to fear, hopelessness, discouragement and fatigue. It is forbidden to sit and wait for the peace to return – say the sisters.

Odessa was a place that embraces, loves and accepts everyone – says sister Teresa. A multi- and international city, God willing, it will remain like this, but fear, mistrust and distance emerged after February 24. You don’t know who supports the Russians. But you have to last with the people and help them, not get involved in pointless disputes.

At the press conference the sisters Teresa and Jonasza remind the audience not to forget about aid for Ukrainian families, children, and the elderly because the winter is approaching whereas at the storehouses are becoming empty. – Don’t write about us – they appeal to the journalists present at the conference. Do write about our Ukrainian friends and charges.

– Barbara Sułek Kowalska
– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists