Reading Eagle, 3/6/2022- Vigil for Ukraine packs Reading church
By WES CIPOLLA
Ukraine, 1942. A 5-year-old boy watches the Nazis send his father, and the rest of the men in his village, to forced labor camps.
With her handwritten notes, Paulette Sech told this story to a full house gathered Sunday at Calvary UCC in Centre Park to pray for peace in Ukraine.
When World War II ended in 1945, the boy’s father was released and made it to the United States, but the boy and his mother were refugees stuck in Poland. The father appealed to Berks County U.S. Rep. George Rhoades, who in turn appealed to the Polish Embassy in New York.
The boy was now a young man, and time was running out. When he turned 21, he would be conscripted into the Polish Army and likely never see his father again. Through Rhoades and the embassy’s efforts, the boy was reunited with his father in June 1958 — four days before his 21st birthday. The boy was John, Paulette’s husband of 57 years.
“I wish everyone had a happy ending like my husband did,” she said. “Of course, he met me, that’s the happy ending.”
Paulette, along with several Berks County religious leaders, U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, spoke at an interfaith vigil and fundraiser for peace following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Standing before the Calvary UCC altar, with its florid wooden carvings of the Last Supper and angels imploring to heaven, the speakers called for unity, peace and solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
“We gather here in a world where we have heard too many stories where 5-year-old children have lost parents,” said Rabbi Brian Michelson of Reform Congregation Oheb Sholom, Wyomissing. “It has happened before and it will happen again, and we cannot silently stand by.”
Seeking to act
The nonpartisan and nondenominational vigil, which raised money for the nonprofit Global Giving and its Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund, was organized by Jane Palmer of Wyomissing.
“I’m just one of millions of people all over the world who are horrified and grief-stricken by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s, not Russia’s, unprovoked genocidal war on Ukraine,” said Palmer, a member of the local advocacy group Berks Stands Up. “I am someone who really cares about democracy, and I think we’re in a global battle of democracy versus autocracy.”
She acknowledged that she can’t change Putin’s mind, but there are things that she can do.
“I have a wonderful team of four volunteers, plus a lot of other support,” Palmer said. The volunteers wore headbands in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
Interfaith prayer
The Rev. Steve Ohnsman, Calvary’s pastor, led a prayer. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others were represented at the vigil, and he declared that they all prayed to the same God — a “god of all faiths.”
Those in the pews discussed the differences between their beliefs and how they were united by a common cause.
“We are all God’s children, and that includes Vladimir Putin,” one woman said. “I keep saying, ‘God, I know he’s one of your children, but please, can you spank him?’”
Representatives of Reading’s Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church were also present, including the Sechs and the Rev. Roman Sverdan.
“The Russian invasion didn’t expect the resistance of the Russian people,” Sverdan said. “People in Ukraine believe in God, and in protecting Ukraine by giving up their lives. We ask God for peace.”
His parishioners sang hymns in English and Ukrainian, as well as Ukraine’s national anthem. Those who knew the words sang along.
Political leaders speak
Houlahan and Shapiro harshly condemned the invasion, calling him a war criminal. Shapiro said he felt a special connection to the people of Ukraine, since his ancestors came from there. He praised the Ukrainians’ “commitment to democracy, and their commitment to respect for one another.”
“To those of you who are wondering how your loved ones are overseas,” he said, “know that we are here with you. We pray for you. Ukrainians are all across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We are proud to be home to the second-largest Ukrainian population in the United States.”
Houlahan told the story of her father, who was born in Lviv, Ukraine, when it was part of Poland. Left on a doorstep and raised by a Christian family, he survived while many of his Jewish relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Houlahan has visited Ukraine twice; once to see her father’s birthplace and again as part of a recent bipartisan congressional delegation that met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Cabinet.
She recalled some of the last scenes of normal life in Ukraine, such as a mother hurrying her daughter along to dance practice on a cold winter day. She pledged to fund weapons for Ukraine and humanitarian aid for the many thousands who have lost their homes and livelihoods, and she encouraged America to open its borders to Ukrainian refugees.
“I can tell you that we are doing everything we can to help,” she said.
Working for peace
Rabbi Michelson called the vigil “what the other side hates.”
“We embrace our diversity,” he said, “that we can be Americans of different styles, of different faiths. Our differences can build us up, not tear us down … It is not enough to pray for peace, we have to work for it”
The vigil concluded with a lighting of candles and a message from Swamini Shraddhananda Saraswati, a Hindu monk from the Kula Kamala Foundation. One lit candle slowly became many, all springing from a single flame. Ukrainian flags waved. Saraswati and the crowd repeated a Sanskrit mantra: “Lokah Samasthah Sukhino Bhavantu,” which means, “May all beings everywhere be happy and free.”