Of Borscht and National Anthems

Last Friday I made borscht for dinner with my sister’s family. It was a request from my nephew, out of solidarity with Ukraine. He made a cake and iced it with blue and yellow.

On Tuesday evening, The Metropolitan Opera in New York began it’s opening night performance with the chorus singing the Ukrainian National Anthem as the audience spontaneously rose to its feet and one of the chorus members sang from memory with his hand over his heart. Out of solidarity.

I’ve been thinking about how very human it is, as we stand helpless before innocent people caught up in a senseless war, to experience how very connected we are. And to want to somehow make that concrete. For my family it of course involved a meal. A meal made from recipes passed down from Ukrainian grandmothers. Solidarity.

On Wednesday, at St Nicholas Cathedral in Kyiv, there was mass at 10am and 3pm. It was streamed to their Facebook page for those who didn’t feel comfortable leaving shelter. They included instructions for giving ashes to one another if you couldn’t get to church. In case you were sheltering in one of the metro stations built deep enough to survive a nuclear strike. Ashes and eucharist, there and here. The ultimate solidarity in the unshakeable love of our God.

So maybe listen to their national anthem. Maybe shed a tear like I did. It’s ok. They need all the solidarity they can get in coming weeks, in our prayer, in our outreach. And, to be honest, we need it too.

-Fr Lou