“Good Friday” letter from Ukraine

By Ligi Payyappilly

Mukachevo, April 22: What is it to live Good Friday in the war-torn Ukraine?

Sister Ligi Payyappilly, a Catholic nun from India’s Kerala state, shares her experience of the war from her mission in Mukachevo, a city in western Ukraine.

“This war has become our Good Friday,” writes the member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Saint Mark, a French origin congregation. “But we know that Easter” at the “dawn of the Resurrection,” she asserts with hope.

The letter continues:

There are many mothers in Ukraine who mourn their children just as Mother Mary suffered under the Cross for her beloved Son. The more this war goes on, the more innocent people will die.

I am going to share with you the shocking information that proves that the Russian military invasion in Ukraine is not just a war of military combat with weapons but sheers massacres and repression and brutal sexual assault on innocent women and children.

Is it what we call war — shooting innocent men on point blank, raping young women and mothers in front of their children, brutally injuring pregnant women? How can these people become so cruel? Seeing this, I can only weep before the tabernacle in the chapel. I can only ask God to have mercy on the people who are suffering. As a woman I can understand the pain they undergo.

Women and girls have recounted the abuse they are suffering at the hands of Russian soldiers. Women are grappling with the threat of rape as a weapon of war. The Russian army physically tortured and killed a mother in front of her six-year-old son. The six bodies of women were found in Kargiv. The Russian soldiers have carried out mass killings and dead bodies on the roadsides have no arms or legs. I do not know how many days it will take to bury them.

Women and children are placed on the roads and the Russian tanks are driven over them. This is butchering of the innocents. No civilized society can approve it. The soldiers tortured a 28-year-old woman in front of her handicapped mother. The daughter was the only one to take care of the bedridden mother. The woman abandoned her mother after her brutal sexual assault and her mother was killed.

The massacre in Bucha has turned the city into a mass grave. As many as 410 bodies of civilians were recovered. People of God fighting each other, brothers separated in peace, now fighting to conquer the other. It is heartbreaking, Let God open the heart of the perpetrators so that they may stop the aggression. Let us pray for peace in Ukraine.

A family had three daughters, aged 5, 8 and 17, and their parents. The Russian soldiers shot the man, raped the mother in front of her daughters. They also raped he daughters in front of the mother. The daughters, aged 5 and 8, died from rape and injuries. The mother and the 17-year-old daughter survived, but their health is in serious condition. How do they live?

In another family, a mother lived with her 16-year-old son. The soldiers shot the son and raped his mother repeatedly for several days. She died of wounds later and a family was wiped out of the face of the earth.

In another house, parents lived with their 11-year-old daughter and a dog. The soldiers shot the man, cut the dog in four pieces in front of the daughter and her mother. Then they raped the mother in front of daughter over a week. The girl was, however, spared, but how will she survive?

In another village, a man and his wife were found dead. The sexual organs of both were found severed. A feeding woman was found dead on the roadside, her breasts severed, beside her two-month old baby

The Russians seem to enjoy raping and killing women – young and elderly – along with children. They find pleasure in doing such cruel things. They seem to be devils in human forms – rotten to the core.

Such incidents are part of the troubles that our women and children are going through. It is a tragedy of the soul, unbearable pain of the body and mind. Our body shrinks from looking at the images.

For us, this is the time of the Way of the Cross. It all started eight years ago and now, since February 24, the war has become our Good Friday. We know that when Jesus went up from Pilate to Golgotha, his face and clothes covered in blood. The same is happening today in Ukraine; the blood of the innocent is everywhere.

Truly, we meet many mothers who mourn their children just as Mary did before the Cross for her beloved Son. I am sure that Our Lady is interceding for Ukrainian mothers. She can understand the pain of these mothers. For Ukraine, the more the war goes on, the more innocent people will die, especially women and children.

Today Golgotha is really in Ukraine.

But we know that Easter comes after Good Friday. We believe and know that God is with us. Easter will come for us too; our sufferings will end.

Let us pray that the dawn of the Resurrection may come for us too. Jesus died for us. He knows our sufferings and can understand us. We are waiting for our Easter, especially for Ukraine, an Easter of hope and peace.

Thank you for giving me a platform to express my feelings for the people of Ukraine. Please continue to pray that this war may end and the whole world may enjoy the peace and joy of Risen Christ.