Pope Francis on November 18 received Indian nun Sister Lucy Kurien, who has worked more than 20 years sheltering destitute women, men and children in her country. Pope Francis knows Sister Kurien personally as they had met before in the Vatican because of her work to provide love, care and shelter to battered, exploited women, destitute men and street children.

Sister Kurien’s is the founder director of Maher (maternal home), she set up in 1997 at Pune, the second largest city and the cultural capital of Maharashtra.

The organization was born out of a terrible event which left an indelible mark on the Catholic nun’s life. Some years earlier a pregnant woman came to her seeking shelter from a violent husband.

Sister Kurien promised to find her somewhere to stay the following day, but in the meantime, the woman returned to her abusive husband. That very evening, the man set his wife on fire, killing both the woman and her unborn baby.

Fast forward to 2019 and this community and interfaith organization has grown dramatically and now has a number of short-stay and long-stay homes in the Indian States of Jharkhand, Kerala, and Maharashtra.

Maher’s mission is to “create secure and loving homes for women, men and children and enable women to discover their power within and develop self-reliance.”

“Most of the women and children who come to our door, they come with a lot of pain…so naturally we have to make them feel they are very comfortable with us,” Sister Kurien says.