The traditional songs of Ukraine outside, around the fountain of the Piazzetta della Madonna dei Monti, a stone’s throw from the Colosseum. Religious songs, accompanied by guitars and drums, inside the Chiesa dei Santi Sergio and Bacchus, the parish of the Greek-Catholic Ukrainians in Rome. It is here that most of the two thousand Ukrainians participating in the Jubilee of young people They met to be together: pray, celebrate, embrace each other, wave the flags of their country and place for a souvenir photo with some artists dressed with traditional clothes.
“All things we cannot do in our country because of the war,” they say, with a bitter smile, Ruslana and Kateryna. Both come from Ukraine, near Kyiv, to participate in this Jubilee that Pope Leone XIV He immediately placed under the sign of peace. And no one like them, on whose heads, for almost three years, rains bombs disassembled by Russia, knows what it means to implore peace in this dramatic moment. “We did not come to have fun but to meet, get to know each other, feel united with young people from all over the world who share faith in Jesus Christ“Says Kateryna,” all this, for us, supports us and gives us strength and makes us feel the presence of God. We Ukrainians are open to dialogue with the whole world “. The Jubilee is dedicated to hope and many Ukrainians have lost hope that the war can really end with a “just and lasting peace”, as they point out, “because we do not need further humiliation”.
Ruslana is skeptical: “During the night bombings it is not easy to hope, sometimes I too think that we will no longer see the peace and that after three years of conflict we will have to prepare for other hard times», He says,” then, exactly as happens in the life of each of us, those in which hope returns to the moments of discouragement and anger and, with her, also the strength to go on “. Kateryna agrees: «Sometimes I take it with God, I feel that faith fails, but it is precisely in those moments that it is necessary to have someone next to you who help you overcome the crisis. This Jubilee is a big hug for us because we know we are not alone but together with our peers from all over the world, other peoples, the Pope and the Lord. Often hope collapses and we see everything dark, then we get up and go back to hope because despite everything the won will win, indeed it has already won, evil ».
A one was organized in the Ukrainian parish of Rome Prayer vigil for non-stop peace of 12 hours. The boys, entire families, many nuns alternate to pray around the Marian icon.
“Prayer is the best medicine,” he says Father Roman Demush, Head of the youth pastoral with the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic patriarchy, who speaks Italian perfectly and tells the initiatives put in place to allow many Ukrainians to participate in this Jubilee: “About 1,500 boys come from Ukraine while another five hundred come from various countries in the world after refugees fleeing the bombs,” He says, “Furthermore, there is a hundred boys who come from the areas most affected by the conflict such as Odessa, Kharkiv and the Donetsk region. Their participation was made possible thanks to the initiative “The ticket of Hope”, a fundraiser in the Greek-Catholic parishes of the Ukrainian rite of the United States and Canada “.
Next to Father Demush there is the bishop Bryan BaydaEparca di Toronto and head of the Greek-Catholic patriarchy commission for youth pastoral care: «I think that our attacker can ruin houses, railways, infrastructures but cannot fight and destroy the Holy Spirit“He says,” prayer is like a source of energy for our soul. Only from prayer our young people draw the strength to live under the bombs and remain anchored to the hope that he never disappoints because no bomb can annihilate the strength of God. His will is peace and on the cross Jesus suffered a lot to perform the will of God. Pativa but, at the same time, he was serene because he knew that God had never abandoned him. This is and must be our mood ».
Monsignor Bayda stresses that he has participated in nine World Youth Days And every time, he explains, “it is a huge responsibility for me to gather young people for prayer. I want this experience of Rome to be a methaneia, a change in their mentality».
In addition to that of Wednesday 30 July, the Ukrainians in Rome organized another day of meeting and prayer for Thursday 31 that they called, significantly, “Gathering of missing” And it takes place in the Basilica of Santa Sofia “to give all the boys the opportunity to meet each other, pray and celebrate”.
Father Demush underlines the importance of the message of peace launched by Pope Leone XIV On Tuesday evening in the opening mass of the Jubilee: «His cry hearted us and gives us the strength to go on and not to discourage us. I also have to thank the Dicastery for evangelization and Monsignor Rino Fisichella who wanted to give us a thousand pilgrim kits to give to our boys ». Just Physichella, at the opening of the reception mass to pilgrims, had remembered young people from war zones.
