How to help!
Please visit Marian.org/Ukraine to make a donation for Ukraine relief. One-hundred percent of funds received are sent directly to Ukraine and used to purchase humanitarian aid and medical supplies.
Please do not mail medical supplies to Ukraine! Instead, please contact the Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy: 1-877-380-0727 or e-mail [email protected] to answer any of your questions.
Because shipping via container is more cost effective, we prefer whatever monetary donations you can give rather than you sending medical supplies. Please know that boxes previously sent to the Marians or the EADM office were sent to Project C.U.R.E. and will be on future containers.
Previous articles on Ukraine.
“It is very important that people in Ukraine know that others still help them and that they are not forgotten,” said said Fr. Wojciech “Wojtek” Jasinski, MIC, general treasurer for the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, based in Rome. “People in Ukraine are trying to sustain hope, and they still rely on our help and prayers.”
Ukraine, two years later
By Chris Sparks
Continue to say the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to obtain the peace of the world and the end of the war, because only she can obtain it. — Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal, July 13, 1917
Two years ago, on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The war drags on, and ordinary folks continue to suffer. But your prayers and financial support have given hope to those caught in the crossfire.
“Once again, I want to thank our donors, on behalf of my confrères in Ukraine, for their support and prayers for peace in Ukraine,” said Fr. Wojciech “Wojtek” Jasinski, MIC, general treasurer for the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, based in Rome.
Not forgotten
Since the start of the war, the Marian Fathers and the Association of Marian Helpers, especially through the Marian apostolates Healthcare Professionals for Divine Mercy and Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy (EADM), have raised more than $1.5 million for humanitarian aid and medical supplies.
“It is very important that people in Ukraine know that others still help them and that they are not forgotten,” said Fr. Wojtek. “People in Ukraine are trying to sustain hope, and they still rely on our help and prayers.”
Last September, Fr. Wojtek met with the Marian superior and pastor in Gorodok in western Ukraine, the place of the Shrine of St. Anthony of Padua and the Marians’ Mercy House for disabled and elderly people.
“He told me that the most challenging matter they deal with now is to sustain hope and not despair,” Fr. Wojtek explained. “It has been a long war. It is almost impossible to imagine how it might end up. In Gorodok and our other parishes, they provide daily support, material and spiritual, for the parishioners, mostly elderly and women, because most of the men are fighting. They are trying to extend Mercy House’s capacity to accept more people who need shelter.”
Pray, pray, pray!
While your financial contributions are life-saving, your prayers for peace are even more important. Remember what Jesus told St. Faustina:
[W]rite this for the many souls who are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 1317).
It can be tempting to feel like our prayers are useless, or too small, or not a real response to the evils confronting the Ukrainian people. Yet salvation history proves otherwise. Prayer has redirected the course of battle in many instances across Jewish and Christian history.
Let us, with prayers, words, and deeds (see Diary, 742) put a limit on evil. Let us continue to help the poor suffering people in Ukraine in any way we can.
I will make you a light to the nations” — Is 49:6
Shining Merciful Light in Ukraine
By Chris Sparks
Nurse Marie Romagnano wears many hats. She’s the founder of Healthcare Professionals for Divine Mercy. She’s also been crucial in fundraising for the medical and humanitarian aid that the Marian Family is providing to the victims of the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Among that aid — including specialized medical equipment for bone fractures, head trauma, and much, much more — one particular contribution seems especially fitting, coming from the Marian Fathers and Marian Helpers: light.
Let there be light!
“You’ve got to have light to help to find people, to do surgery, to do whatever you’ve got to do,” said Nurse Marie. “I became aware of the problem when the grid was attacked and all the power went out in Ukraine. Doctors were doing open heart surgery on babies with flashlights. And the more information that I received, it was perfectly clear to me we had to do something about it, and do it fast.”
So Nurse Marie contacted LuminAID, founded by two grad students, Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshta.
“We designed an inflatable solar lantern that could pack flat to be cost-effectively distributed after disasters,” they explain on their website. “The simple, rechargeable lantern is lightweight, easy to use, and serves as a safer alternative to hazardous candles or toxic kerosene for people without stable access to electricity.”
For the past decade, LuminAID has worked with humanitarian partners across the world. That now includes the people served by the Marian Family’s aid efforts.
“It was unbelievable,” Nurse Marie said. One of the founders, Andrea, called her back. “I told her what we needed, and I told her the budget, and she said fine. I explained our situation and how we’re focusing on the medical aid to those that are injured.”
In the end, Nurse Marie was able to purchase 1,900 of the LuminAID lanterns. With help from Project C.U.R.E. (a humanitarian organization with longstanding ties to Dr. Bryan Thatcher and the works of mercy done by the Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy), Nurse Marie was able to find a way to get those lights to the right hands in Eastern Europe.
But that wasn’t all. “From the funds from the Marian Helpers Center, I was able to purchase not only the lights, but also other specialized medical supplies,” explained Nurse Marie, including turnout kits, compression bandages, anything that the paramedics might need on the scene.
The difference you make
The assistance from the Marian Helpers has made a real impact on the ground.
“One time in particular, one of the Marians contacted me and said, ‘Marie, the paramedics in Kharkiv are out of medical supplies,’” Nurse Marie recalled. “This is especially distressing because the Marian Fathers have a parish in Kharkiv, and that was actively being attacked.
“It just so happened that our shipment arrived the next day with specialized equipment,” she said. “And it’s all thanks to the Marian Helpers Center and their support that Project C.U.R.E. and the Marian Fathers are able to work to get this distributed. The need continues.”
Please visit Marian.org/Ukraine to make a donation for Ukraine relief. One-hundred percent of funds received are sent directly to Ukraine and used to purchase humanitarian aid and medical supplies.
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