Holy Cross: Children from Ukraine Received Their First Holy Communion.

Originally Published on the website of the Missionary Oblates of Poland

Their preparations in Gniezno were interrupted by the war.

In the house chapel of the monastery in Świętokrzyskie, (Poland) the children from Gniezno received Holy Communion for the first time. Mirosława (16) and Margarita (11) were preparing for it in the Oblate parish in Gniezno, Ukraine. Two weeks earlier, they had come from a war-torn country with their mother and two-month-old brother, finding refuge in the Oblate religious community. Together with them, Vitalija’s mother and three sisters came to the Holy Cross, who in the novitiate discerns the way of his vocation.

The preparations for the first communion in Ukraine were conducted by Father Krzysztof Buzikowski, OMI, while the preparations for the Holy Cross were completed by Father Jacek Leśniarek, OMI, who served on our eastern border. The Eucharist was celebrated in Ukrainian. At the end, a blessing was given with the relics of the Holy Cross Tree.