The general audience with Pope Francis on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, was attended by leaders of the communities of Consecrated Life in the UGCC, who arrived in Rome from different parts of the world for the Assembly of high abbots and abbesses. During the meeting with the Holy Father, they presented him with special liturgical vestments with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the long-suffering Ukraine, the land of martyrs.
Superior of the Ukrainian province of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word told Vatican Radio about the significance of this gift.
The vestments depict the composition "Martyr Church". We see a cross with Jesus Christ crucified on it. Above it there's a symbolic outline of St Sophia, which is a symbol of the Ukrainian Church. Golgotha, on which the cross stands, seems to sprout from the blood-soaked Ukraine, which below the contour of the map of Ukraine on the hands of two angels is depicted a cup into which the blood of martyrs flows.
"We came to this assembly at a very special time for Ukraine to pray here and to bring the truth about the situation in Ukraine," she said. Maria Goshivska, provincial Abbess of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word in Ukraine.
"Our Church, starting from St. Josaphat, gave martyrs precisely for unity with the successor of St. Peter. The entire twentieth century was marked by this martyrdom and evidence of this loyalty. And in this period of history, we are experiencing a new period of martyrdom, when Ukraine is shedding blood. This is the testimony of those martyrs who speak with their blood, shout that there is no greater love than to give their lives for friends," said Sister Maria Goshivska.