This student’s experience indicates the grace of God that is being poured out on Ukraine at this time, a grace that is sustaining the faith of many Ukrainians and shaping their mentality (even if only a few might speak as this student does). Perhaps we may hope that Ukraine might emerge from this terrible ordeal with a new kind of patriotism, a new way of understanding and experiencing their national identity as a form of love and solidarity that reflects the light of the Gospel, as a special commitment to a more human way of living born of the transformative reality of faith—a way of living that is a blessing for the whole world.
Here is the text of Pope Francis reading this great and moving letter:
I received a letter from a young Ukrainian university student. It reads: "Father, when, on Wednesday, you remember my country and are able to speak to the whole world on the thousandth day of this terrible war, I ask you not to speak only of our suffering but also of our faith. Although it is imperfect, that does not diminish its value, because it paints, with painful strokes, a portrait of the Resurrected Christ. There have been too many deaths in my life recently. It is difficult to live in a city where a missile kills and wounds dozens of civilians, and you are witness to so many tears. I would have liked to flee, would have liked to go back to being a child in my mother's arms, would have liked to remain in silence and in love, but I thank God because, through this pain, I am learning greater love. Pain is not only a road to anger, and despair, if based on faith, it is a good teacher of love. Father, if pain makes you suffer, it means that you love. And so, when you speak of our pain, when you remember our thousand days of suffering, speak of our thousand days of love, too, because only love, faith, and hope give a real meaning to our wounds."
