Praise be to Jesus Christ!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today, Friday, November 11, 2022, marks the 261st day of the war in Ukraine, a full-scale, bloody, cruel and sacrilegious war.

Yesterday will certainly go down in history with the courageous and victorious steps of the Ukrainian army towards our Kherson. Yesterday we learned from the President that 41 settlements had been liberated in the Kherson region. Just yesterday, 12 were released, so the Kherson region is waiting for the day of freedom, the day when it can shake off the murderous hand of the Russian aggressor.

But yesterday, too, there was heavy fighting along the front lines. The enemy seems to be taking revenge on the Ukrainian civilian population. They say the fleeing enemy’s special tactic is to rob and abuse the weakest and most vulnerable: civilians, women, children and the elderly. Yesterday the enemy again attacked Mykolaiv, hitting a building and killing at least two people. But the search continues. The enemy again attacked nearly 20 towns and villages throughout Ukraine. Today we heard news from our region of Vinnytsia, where the occupier has destroyed essential infrastructure in this part of Ukraine.

But Ukraine continues! Ukraine is fighting! Ukraine pray!

We continue our reflection on how to heal the wounds of Ukraine, to heal the wounds of the Ukrainian people, right now, and to heal the wounds of Ukraine after our glorious victory over the shameful occupier. Today I would like to reflect on another truth that we must realize in order to clearly influence our plans or our ways of building a perspective for the future.

We said yesterday that the healing of wounds requires a presence. A sick and suffering person needs the presence of another, “Other” with a capital letter. This means that man seeks his God-Creator and Savior and another man who, in the moment of greatest suffering and difficulty, will take him by the hand and not leave him alone with his personal drama. Therefore, the mystery of the presence of another person, close to the suffering person, is a necessary condition for his healing.

And there is another dimension. Beyond this space of presence, there is also the time needed to heal our wounds. The time to find. Find it and sacrifice it at least for our own health. We have to give the time we have to give to our neighbor who is suffering because of the war.

We know that human corporeality is a particular mystery of a person’s presence in visible form here in this material world, which is not even fully understood by modern medicine. We know you can get sick very quickly or get injured quickly, but the healing process always takes time. Sometimes even long. There’s no way to recover as quickly as turning the light on or off. Therefore, to regain health, to heal our wounds, we have to accept the need for time.

A man in the modern world can have everything except time. We live in a world that from time to time imposes on us and on others an ever faster pace of life. We can have everything except time for God, for ourselves, for our neighbour. However, we must realize that healing Ukraine’s wounds is a task that will probably drag on for decades. And for this we must not be discouraged, be disappointed, give up, but fight not only with the enemy who harms us, but also with the disease itself. We must fight everything that destroys us, that breaks us, that robs us of the integrity of our humanity. Therefore, after the war, Ukraine will rebuild its infrastructure and return to normal life.

It is very easy to go to war, but very difficult to return to a peaceful life. Because the most difficult task is to revive and rebuild the human heart. For as Christ says, “the mouth speaks from the fullness of the heart”. We need time to heal our wounds.

Psychological help, which is and can be very effective and useful today, will unfortunately be indispensable to most of us who have experienced the stress of war in one way or another. First of all, this applies to people who suffer from the so-called post-traumatic stress disorder which may not show up until later. We should draw up an action plan for ourselves, society, the state and the health system, so that we have time to heal the wounds with patience, tedious daily work. But the most important thing is to persevere in our faith in God, including trusting in the Lord Creator, Savior and Healer, to have patience while waiting for complete healing.

Today I would like to invite you once again to listen to the voice of the Servant of God, Archbishop Andrzej Szeptycki, who will speak to us about the common good. The State is founded on the common good which is built, shared and approved by all the fellow citizens of a given country. When we live in such an individualistic world today, sometimes we only want to build a private good, our own good. The common good, on the other hand, is something that underpins state building. Our victory will be a common good, because we can only achieve it together, in the united efforts of all our people. And here is what the virtuous Metropolitan Andrzej tells us about this reality, this foundation of our effort to build the state and its existence: “The common good makes people one body. This common good is the basis of everything love. The feeling and awareness of this common good which unites men, binds them together, makes man understand that the common good is in fact his own good. And the good of his neighbor as his own. neighbor is also my good. And therefore, with the same love with which man loves himself, he is called to love all humanity, and in particular his nation and his fatherland”.

Lord, grant us the grace of patience to heal and heal our wounds. God, be with us at this time, for You are the only patient, slow in your anger, but great in your mercy. May God bless our Ukrainian army! May God bless our Ukrainian people! God, bless our Ukraine with your righteous heavenly peace!

May the blessing of the Lord descend upon you through his grace and love for mankind, always, now and forever and ever. Amen.

Praise be to Jesus Christ!