Natalya and Her Companions: An Easter Reflection
This very Easter morning I opened the New York Times to read a story of Natalya Zhornyk, a 31-year-old mother from Ukraine, who with a group of women completed a dangerous 3,000 mile journey from Ukraine to Poland to Belarus to Russia to retrieve her son Artem and 15 other children and bring them home. Artem and his companions are among the thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly detained since the Russian invasion and moved to Russia or Russian-held Ukrainian territory. There, the Times report says, these children are subject to re-education, fostering, and adoption by Russian families. One day Natalya got a phone call from Artem. “Mom, come and get me.” She did just that. The thought that came to mind most clearly upon reading this account was that Natalya and her companions, - these mothers whose love for their children compelled them to put themselves in danger to save them - are displaying for us the divine image in a most brilliant way. Like the Holy One, in whose ...