Remembering 9/11, 25 years later: 'We are never alone'
By Kielce Gussie
“Everyone I've talked to remembers exactly where they were 25 years ago,” says Archbishop Ronald Hicks of New York, referring to the anniversary marking a quarter of a century since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Whether you were working, in school, or not yet born, the events of that day changed aspects of the world.
For Archbishop Hicks, September 11, 2001, started in the classroom during his graduate studies as a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago, Illinois. He remembers how the entire class sat in disbelief after learning the news.
It was an event that affected not only the places where the planes crashed—New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania—but the thousands of people whose lives would never be the same.
Faith in the midst of terror
On a day filled with terror, sadness, and shock, faith, too, was found amid the rubble.
Not only did people find faith on 9/11, but Archbishop Hicks highlights how it became something to rely on. “At the core, when everything is falling apart, people go right back to God, to faith, to hope, to those core things that hold us together as a people,” he explains.
More than 2,900 people were killed on that day alone. Out of the thousands of first responders who charged into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania, hundreds died selflessly trying to save others.
Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain for the New York Fire Department, was one example of these core values in action. “I think what you saw in Father Judge is what happened to so many people,” Archbishop Hicks underlines. “When there's a need, you jump in, and you don't hesitate, and you help…he lost his life, but that is sacrificial love.”
Father Judge became the first certified fatality of the attacks. His name is among the other 2,976 persons forever immortalized in the memorial—made from the steel of the twin towers—in New York.
A community unites
In the city where the two World Trade Center towers once stood, acts of remembrance, services, Masses, and memorials will commemorate the anniversary—from walks of remembrance and wreath-laying ceremonies to dedications and light tributes.
But exactly at 8:46 am—the moment 25 years ago when the first plane hit the North Tower—all the church bells in the city will ring as New York goes quiet.
It will be a moment “to stop, to listen, to pray, to not forget, and to do so as a community together with God,” Archbishop Hicks explains.
The archdiocese also held a vigil Mass on the evening of September 10 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the heart of New York City. In the packed church were family members of victims of 9/11, representatives of the New York Police and Fire departments, Port Authority, emergency service workers, civic leaders, humanitarian organizations, priests, and lay people.
Archbishop Hicks describes the support this unity brings, especially to those who are still grieving 25 years on. “It takes a long time with something of this magnitude. So, coming together in faith and at the Mass, that helps.”
Peace is fragile
Remembering the events of September 11, 2001, also reminds us that peace is fragile. It can only be accomplished if people join together to work for it, overcoming disagreements and challenges.
The attacks ushered in a period of tension. They fractured a sense of fraternity and shed doubts on the sense of stability and peace so painstakingly built after the end of the Cold War.
Just eight weeks after the attacks, St. Pope John Paul II highlighted dialogue as “essential for overcoming tragic conflicts inherited from the past, and for ensuring that ‘the name of the one God become increasingly what it is: a name of peace and a summons to peace.’”
Seven years later, standing at the site of the World Trade Center, Pope Benedict XVI prayed for peace in our violent world. “Comfort and console us, strengthen us in hope, and give us the wisdom and courage to work tirelessly for a world where true peace and love reign…”
In 2015, Pope Francis marveled at how such love was shown on that tragic day, remarking on how “here, amid pain and grief, we also have a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of, those hidden reserves of strength from which we can draw. In the depths of pain and suffering, you also witnessed the heights of generosity and service. Hands reached out, lives were given.”
The Mass at St. Patrick’s, 25 years after the attacks, was an example of the dialogue and fraternity the pontiffs called for to achieve peace in the world but also in our countries, cities, and families. Catholics, rabbis, imams, Protestant ministers, interreligious and ecumenical groups were all present in the Cathedral, praying and hoping together.
“[Dialogue] begins with us. We might disagree on a number of issues. It could be about theology, ecclesiology, [or] politics. But we have to take the first step to at least stand together, and to really follow the example of peace,” the archbishop of New York points out.
His entire homily at St. Patrick's centered on the fact that healing and grieving take time. They cannot be swept away. They cannot be ignored. But hope, the archbishop says, is eternal.
“God is with us in the good, in the bad. He is with us in our tragedies, in our joys. We are never abandoned. We are never alone. God was with us 25 years ago. God has been with us during these 25 years. God is with us today. God will continue to be with us tomorrow.”
