Having “the smell of sheep” for one military chaplain serving in Ukraine has now means being surrounded by the smell of burned homes and lives. Pope Francis has previously said priests should “be shepherds with the smell of the sheep”.

“Every city has its own smell of suffering. It can’t be described. The church here must become saturated with this smell and stay close by with different ways of helping,” said Father Oleksandr Khalayim, in an interview with Vatican News.

The priest is a military chaplain and a papal missionary of mercy serving in a Diocese in the southwest of the country near the border with Moldova and Romania. He was in Rome for an April 23-25 World Meeting of Missionaries of Mercy.

Asked how he brings mercy and forgiveness as a chaplain to a war zone, Khalayim told Vatican News that forgiveness may take “three or four generations.”

“For me, right now it is hard to talk about forgiveness if bombs keep coming, if children are still being killed, if our cities are still being bombed,” he said. “To forgive what women and children have suffered through is truly difficult.”

As a missionary of mercy, he said when he speaks with soldiers, he explains that mercy means asking them not to kill if it is possible. But that is not easy for those on the frontlines who are defending their country.

“Even this is mercy — to defend your home and family,” he said.