Holy Week pain, Easter hope in Ukraine

At the invitation of my brother Jesuit, Fr. Chris Smith, I recently attended Mass at the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington, D.C. Chris is a young, multitalented science teacher at Gonzaga High School who developed a love for Ukrainians and their liturgy while in college. He spent a year teaching English in Ukraine.

He knew of my interest in Ukraine because I had shared with him my experience of helping run a seminar for Ukrainian bishops shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain and my visit to Ukraine as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. His invitation was my chance to express solidarity with the Ukrainian people accompanied by someone who could help me understand what was going on.

In our black clerical clothes, the pair of us stood out in the church: me a short, old white guy struggling to know what page we were on, and Chris a tall, young Black man effortlessly singing the Ukrainian responses.

Two things struck me about the liturgy.

First, the constant involvement of the congregation in sung responses during the liturgy. I wish the Roman liturgy involved the congregation as much.

Second, the music, which seemed to be an uncanny mix of pain and hope. It beautifully expressed the situation of the Ukrainian people at this moment, though it came out of centuries of experience and prayer. It was the music and prayer of people who had suffered persecution, war, sickness and death, but still gathered to pray and hope for a better life, here or in the world to come.

That persecution, war and famine still exist in the 21st century is a tragedy beyond tears. Pope Francis recently condemned the war in Ukraine as "infantile and destructive aggression," the work of "some autocrat, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests."