Rays of Divine Mercy have reached a homeless!

“I’ve spent 35 years in prison.” During a car ride a homeless man confided his life experience to volunteer Dmytro. Dmytro broke a sweat immediately; he felt a frog in his throat, and thoughts in his mind ran somewhere from that place. He hoped that man would cause no harm to him while on the road with just two of them in the car. “But what have you done to be sentenced for such a long imprisonment?” we ask together with volunteers. “Haven’t you killed someone by any chance?”

We have been visiting the homeless man in a hospital for several weeks in a row already. His figure is not tall, skinny as it is the usual case with the homeless. His right leg is amputated above the knee, and there are several minor wounds on his left leg which have been the reason for his admission to the hospital. During our first meeting, he said yes to our shaving him. In a time he also accepted our help to give him a wash. He was constantly silent and reserved, so we could not learn much about him. He is 59 years old and comes from the eastern part of Ukraine where war rages presently. Once, having done his washing, he asks for help with his papers. He shows us all he has got: a passport with a residence registration, a disability confirmation, a personal tax reference number and a paper confirming his release from imprisonment. I understand he has been in prison, but I just cannot believe he has so many papers, because the homeless usually haven’t got any personal paper at all. My eyes just gleamed at the fact of having someone with enough of papers for us to help him get accommodated at the Center for the Homeless. So, I take pictures of all the papers and go to see a doctor who treats the man. I ask the doc if we could collect the lacking papers together with him. He looks through the papers, shows surprise and then reads out loud the man has been convicted five times. The doctor agrees to help him the way I offer, which means the man will be treated there for some more weeks.

Volunteer Dmytro also pledged for not an easy job, arranging the papers in offices located on the opposite ends of Kyiv. What surprised us the most was the fact that two years ago the homeless man already had a Center appointment, but right before his departure he changed his mind and did not go there. We fear he will do the same this time as well. We fear that we shall take much time, efforts and means, and he will not want to go there in the end. So during our next meeting I want him to decide it clearly if he wants us to help him to get his pension and also to give him assistance in getting a place to live at the Center for the Homeless. He says yes to our helping him with the Center as well. Well, that sounds not too persuasive, but at least we continue to receive the papers. However, some complication emerged in the hospital.  A head of the department ordered to discharge the man from the hospital. That surprised me, because we made a deal to help the man settle in the Center. So I ask the doctor to keep him for some more time, because the whole procedure nears completion, and we shall receive an appointment to the Center in a while. The doctor presses his point saying they lack free places and the man is in rude health and lots of similar excuses. I feel helpless but still try to ask him again to give us some more time to put the papers in order. The doctor is not very pleased at having to keep the man in his department for some more time.

Thus, Dmytro keeps on arranging the papers, and while driving in a car together with the homeless man from one office to another he learns also that Russian soldiers seized the prison with this man and captured all its prisoners two years ago. They forced him to fight against Ukrainian troops, but he did not want to. Having stayed to live on the street, he lost his leg as it often happens in life of the homeless.

When we arrived at the hospital in a week, the homeless man was in a very poor condition. He could not even walk to the bathroom and was breathing very hard. He believed something was wrong with his heart, because he had already had two heart attacks. So, I ask the doctor to examine him. An immediate checkup shows the man has got a lot of liquid in his lungs. Doctors render him quick help to ease his condition. At home we wonder if the man will live. It would be better that a priest visited him. So, immediately on the following day we went to the hospital together with Sr. Marta. The homeless man felt better, but he was breathing as hard as before, and we could see he was afraid of his severe condition. We can do nothing, but Sr. Marta tells him at once why we have come. The homeless says he wants to make a confession, because he has killed a person. That blows our minds to the bone. He needs one day to get ready for his confession. After the confession, I talk to him, because he is as silent as before. But what was the most illuminating were his happy eyes and the words he said: “Now, I fear nothing.” To make it certain, I ask him: “Even if you are to die?” And he affirms: “Yes, even if I am to die.”

Oh my Lord, now I understand and I feel no anger anymore that the homeless man did not go to the Center two years ago. Indeed, You wished that he would meet You at first and experience Your endless Mercy. Thank You for showing Your merciful face through the poor, for revealing us Who You really are.

During these holidays, I wish that you also would discover the merciful face of Our Savior so that He would draw you still closer to Himself through His sufferings and Resurrection.

s. Barbara Peterlin МС