After the journey that accompanied us towards the Jubilee of Consecrated Life (8–12 October 2025), we wish to continue walking in the path of Hope, allowing ourselves to be inspired by new testimonies from the Sisters Project of Vatican News, which we will publish weekly on our website.

This week we share the mission of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who live alongside those suffering because of war. They stay close, they listen, they comfort, they feed, and they care for those in need. “For me, it does not matter whether I die in Poland or in Ukraine, because my sisters, my community, are there,” Mother Judyta Kowalska, Superior General, told Vatican Media.

The Little Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary are one of the 12 congregations founded by Blessed Honorat (Honoratus) Koźmiński that are still active today. They were founded during the partition period of Poland, when the Church and Poland were going through difficult times.

“We were founded during a time of crisis to help people suffering from spiritual and material crises. We do not wear a habit, we stay close to the people, to their problems and their joys,” according to Mother Judyta Kowalska, Superior General of the congregation.

The Congregation is present in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, Rome and Ukraine. In Ukraine, there are 80 sisters spread across 21 institutes, including in dangerous territories such as Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Crimea and Transnistria.

The first response to the war

When Russia launched a full-scale war on Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Mother Kowalska told the Sisters who were living in Ukraine that they could seek refuge in Poland, at any time.

“Not many of them went [to Poland]. Most stayed, and those who did come, dedicated themselves to assisting refugees at the border. The Sisters could speak the languages and translate, as well as help and comfort the people,” she recalled.

From the very beginning, the Sisters in Ukraine organised prayer and peace vigils. “They did not want to leave the people without any spiritual support. They knew they had to stay with them,” said the Superior General, who has visited the war-torn communities many times herself.

Chaplains of everyday life

“We live day by day,” said Sr. Kamila Karmaluk, Superior of the Vicariate of Saint Michael the Archangel in Ukraine. “In difficult places like Kharkiv and Odessa, the Sisters take shelter with the people in subways or cellars, when they hear gunfire. Once it’s over they return to their work in hospitals, parishes and refugee centres. The most difficult thing is comforting people who have been exhausted by war and have lost hope, and to talk to them about God.”

The Sisters provide material assistance, but their mere presence is a big help. “Sometimes we cry with them, or quietly go with them to their homes, where they have lost everything,” Sr. Kamila said.

Experiencing the war through others’ suffering

During the war, Sr. Kamila worked at the Caritas centre in Jabłonica, which took in hundreds of refugees. “I did not experience this war physically, but rather through the people’s eyes and their broken hearts. I listened to them for hours. It was like a school of crying hearts,” she recalled.

She shared the story of a young girl, whose mother had died in a foreign city, who did not even have a place to keep the urn with her mother’s ashes. “She knelt in church and said, ‘Sister, I don’t know where to bury my mother.’ Tragedies like hers, in which what tomorrow brings is unknown, are an everyday occurrence,” she stressed.

Concrete help

In addition to their presence and their spiritual support, the Sisters work in practical ways. They hold monthly meetings in Kyiv for women who have lost loved ones in the war.

In Odessa, one of the Sisters, who is a surgeon, saves the lives of wounded soldiers. In addition to providing food and cleaning products to many places, the Sisters of Blessed Honorat visit the sick and the lonely.

Moreover, many of the Sisters have completed the school for military chaplains, run by Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk, Ordinary of the Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia, where they are trained to help people who have suffered from trauma and to support soldiers’ families.
 

Article by Karol Darmoros, Vatican News