Mar 29, 2022 | FORUM, NEWS
I could call the Sisters of Mary Immaculate from the PoMOC Association in Katowice for Women and Children as angels on earth. My story of getting to the sisters is not simple … probably any girl who found herself in the Association Center is not simple …
The sisters saved me twice – the first time when I was thrown out of my family home with a 4-month-old son and referred by MOPS to the sisters. Earlier, in the Single Mother House, where I stayed for three days, it was so terrible that I knew that whatever it was there, it couldn’t get any worse. On a frosty February day, I was greeted by my sister Basia – she came to pick us up at the gate.
I will never forget it, and even as I write it, I feel warm in my heart. I fed my son, gave a bath, and my sister showed me our room. I walked in and saw flip-flops with cherries, colorful, and that’s when I felt a great relief and peace that I had never felt before. I managed to raise money for renting an apartment and the story should end here happily. But, unfortunately, life writes its script … My son’s father was released from prison, the relationship was great – for a year or two … Later I got pregnant for the second time and the horror began. From challenges, to beatings, renouncing the child that I was carrying under my heart and locking me at home for 12 hours in a threatened pregnancy and with my little son at home. I was able to find the strength to put this man in a prison for bullying me. And perhaps there should also be a happy ending here, but not. I was in my third pregnancy when depression attacked me insidiously (now I know it was him I didn’t know then). I perfectly remember the day when Sister Anna came to me with a food package. She quickly realized that it wasn’t that it wouldn’t help me. It was then for the second time that I went to the center and I gave birth to a wonderful son there.
What have I learned and what have I got from being with angels?
First of all, great mental support – thanks to this, I am currently undergoing treatment for depression. I gave birth to a wonderful son – I don’t know what would happen if during my pregnancy I didn’t start to heal depression … maybe I wouldn’t be able to love him as much as I love him now.
Raising children is easier for me – I drew a lot from Sister Karolina’s help and her valuable tips in this matter.
But most of all, and most importantly, love, warmth and understanding. For the first time in my life, I was not afraid to cry honestly and without inhibition, when mentally I could not cope.
I remember the Christmas situation. One of the girls from the center said – it’s always like home here.
Unfortunately, I had to answer that in my case it was better than at home …
Imagine a place where a 25-year-old girl can be better than at home …
And this is how I really felt that this place was my place on earth.
– Caroline
Mar 29, 2022 | POSITIVE IMPULSES
Jealousy finds its subtlest or microscopic form to the crudest form of hatred as it stems from the feeling of threat from the other. Basically, that person has no peaceful place in your world. This jealousy is very damaging to oneself since it kindles and keeps aflame hatred in us. Lot of our energy and attention will be taken to destroy the good that comes out from that person. Here we need to embark on a journey of finding peace with that person based on our self-confidence and self-acceptance. Because the other becomes a threat when we don’t see ourselves in the right place.
Don Giorgio
Mar 18, 2022 | NEWS
The angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said: Rise up, take the Child and his mother and flee into Egypt. Remain there until I tell you, because Herod will be looking for this Child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother at night, and went to Egypt.
Mt 2: 13-14
This year our Congregation is celebrating the feast of St. Joseph our patron in the shadow of war – a drama of many defenceless people who are forced to leave their current lives and run away in search of shelter. It is an experience that we cannot imagine, but our Patron, St. Joseph experienced something similar in his life. He knows what it means to be a refugee.
In our prayers, let us ask St. Joseph, so that he could take care and help all of today’s fleeing mothers and their children, as he looked after Jesus and Mary. Let us commend to Him today all refugees who are forced to leave everything and flee into the unknown.
Or maybe, apart from prayer, we can be able to do some specific actions towards those in need. For a material gift, which do we also offer in this way to St. Joseph? May our love and devotion to St. Joseph also reveal himself in concrete deeds.
M. M. Sybilla Kołtan
Mar 17, 2022 | NEWS
My ministry in Ukraine began 20 years ago. On April 12, 2002, I left for our post in Sąsiadowice, a town in western Ukraine. Our activity there was focused on being and supporting the local people. We visited the sick, the elderly and the lonely. We served pastoral and charitable services in the parish. People were very kind and grateful. They often talked about their life during the Soviet Union. There were two denominations in the village: Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic, but there were no great divisions. Greek Catholic believers willingly came to us for services, especially for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We also celebrated holidays together. After several years of activity in Sąsiadowice, our Congregation received an invitation and a request from the bishop to start pastoral and missionary activities in Koziatyn, in the eastern part of Ukraine. The further east of Ukraine, more people need spiritual care and missionary activities. The superiors of the Congregation decided to move our mission from Sąsiadowice to Koziatyn, we went there in 2006. People were very happy with our arrival. The parish and church were very neglected and people felt abandoned. At the beginning, we lived in the apartment of one of the parishioners. From the very first day, the parishioners were of great help. We could count on them in everything we needed so that we would only stay there. After two weeks, the bishop also visited us to see how we live. There was a great need for our presence in Koziatyn and we felt it very much, and it gave us additional strength to start our mission there.
After some time, the Congregation decided to start building its own house in Koziatyn with rooms for pastoral activities. A common room and rooms for children were created in the new building. We also had plenty of food for anyone who was hungry. We also visited the sick, the lonely and the elderly. It was through the conversations during these visits that I learned the history of Ukraine. Older people were eager to talk about their past and many difficult experiences. I heard what these people experienced in their youth. Their attitude towards us was also touching. Although they did not have much themselves, they wanted to help us very much and cared for us as if they were the closest family. Now, when I was leaving Koziatyn, they werecrying for me …
The war in Ukraine began in 2014, when the soldiers from our town also went to fight, and the people needed support and a kind presence even more. Apart from my daily mission, I tried to help as much as I could. I organized rosaries and medals, which I sent for soldiers to the front. They needed it much. Even non-believers, going to war, would come to me for a rosary and a medal with the image of Mary Immaculate. I gave away about 2,500 rosaries. But I did not only distribute rosaries. One friend from Poland gave me bulletproof vests, asking me to give them to the young men from our town who were going to war, because they were often called to the front without any preparation or protection. It was also an important help for them. Young boys sent to the war came to our house, to whom I gave vests, rosaries and medals. Together with the parishioners, we also prayed fervently for them. Since 2014, many people have died in the war, and in fact, there has not been a day when someone did not die there.
Due to personnel problems in the Congregation, a decision was made to end our activities in Ukraine. Until the formalities related to the building were completed, I was alone there, continuing my tasks. It was also a very interesting and beautiful experience for me. I had to organize many things myself, but then the people from the town helped me even more. I felt very safe with them and experienced their great goodness even more than before. I didn’t think so well about myself as they did about me … It was a beautiful time together!
I left the house before Christmas 2021. The Congregation decided to leave the facility at the disposal of the diocese, subject to pastoral activity there. Now I have constant contact with the parish priest and people from the parish. This is important, especially after the outbreak of the war on February 24. Currently, our house is inhabited by mothers with young children who have escaped from Kiev. They are very grateful because I have left in the house everything they need for a normal life – even food supplies.
Now I am preparing for new tasks in the Congregation, but I am with them with my heart and prayer. I have spent twenty years in Ukraine, it is a beautiful time in my life, so I am particularly touched by news from Ukraine, which is fighting for its future, and I understand well the people who are surviving the war and fleeing from it.
S.M. Fabian Furca
Mar 14, 2022 | SPIRITUALITY
God of our fathers, great and merciful! Lord of life and peace, Father of all people. Today we run to You and invoke Your help through the intercession of Saint Joseph, the Careful Defender of Christ. You yourself chose him so that, as the Bridegroom of the Mother of God, he would become the Head of the Holy Family. For us, too, as Sisters of Mary Immaculate, he is a Support in difficulties, but above all he is the Father and Guardian of our Religious Family. Today we stand before you in this National Shrine, to entrust our Congregation with love in our heart, to entrust you with our future, because time and everything is yours. We entrust to you our fear and doubt about what constitutes our present. Our past is in your hands. Our present is in your hands. And our future is in your hands. Each and every one of us is in your hands. Give us the courage to keep believing that we are in your hands. For your will is peace, not torment. Our fear for the future breeds torment, and it is a terrible feeling, as devastating as war. Saint Joseph, God has made you head of his house and overlord of all his possessions. We invoke you today as the Terror of Hell’s Spirits. You are here to help Archangel Michael to save our souls from eternal damnation. We fear a war that brings death and destruction. But this war is born in us and is in us, when we do not cultivate relationships, when we kill ourselves with gossip and slander, when we deviate so far from the commandments and regulations of our religious orders. Plead for us, our Holy Patron, for a peace that begins in our hearts. Let them be full of God, His love and goodness, and then we will survive. God, one and all-powerful, Damn war and overthrow the pride of the violence. You sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to preach peace to those near and far and to unite people of all races and generations into one family.
We invoke Your intercession, Saint Joseph, we also invoke You, Saint Michael the Archangel, and You, Saint Patrons of Poland and our Congregation, and we cry out in the words of Saint John Paul II: Let there be no more war – a bad adventure from which there is no turning back, let there be no more war in us – a maze of struggle and violence. Let the war in Ukraine, which threatens your creatures in the sky, on earth and in the sea, cease.
With Mary, the Mother of Jesus and ours, we implore you to speak to the hearts of people responsible for the fate of nations. Destroy the logic of retaliation and revenge, and give through the Holy Spirit new generous and noble solutions, in dialogue and patient waiting – more fruitful than violent warfare.
Father, give our times days of peace. Let there be no more war. Amen.
