September 8, 2021

Dear Friends in Christ,

As we approach the 20^th anniversary of 9/11 this Saturday, I -- like perhaps some of you -- reflect on where I was and what I was doing that day. Two years into the priesthood, I was serving as an associate pastor at St. John Francis Regis Church in Hollywood, MD, when the news broke that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, another plane had hit the Pentagon, and a fourth plane was supposed to crash into the U.S. Capitol. The actions of the passengers and crew prevented that from happening. Instead, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, PA. All 44 people on board were killed.

When I heard that President George W. Bush had called for Friday, September 14, 2001, to be a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, I asked the pastor if I could organize a Holy Hour at noon that day as part of our parish observance of the President’s request. He reluctantly gave his approval, saying, “No one will ever come to a prayer service on a Friday afternoon." That day, the church was full of grieving people, both those personally touched by the horrors of that day and those who shared in the humanity of the events our nation had so recently experienced.

  

For many, 9/11 marks the time “before” and “after.” The 2,996 people who died in New York City, Washington DC, and Shanksville, PA, came from 78 countries. Their numbers included 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers at the World Trade Center alone. Some of you have ties to the 189 people who perished at the Pentagon where the third plane hit, killing 125 military personnel and civilians and the 64 people aboard the plane. It is a memory that we will always keep and a wound that will never fully heal.

I would like to invite everyone to a 9/11 prayer service to be held at 7 pm Sunday, September 12, in the church. The passage of 20 years neither dulls nor alleviates the pain felt in the horrific loss of life – mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, and brothers to people left behind. It illustrates the long reach of those events, given the 10,000 people diagnosed by 2018 with 9/11-related cancers from their exposure to poisonous fumes and particles from the burning towers.

It also gives us an opportunity to pause and give thanks for God’s strength and healing. To reflect on our renewed faith, which so many leaned on in the aftermath. And to grieve and remember every life that was lost.

We may not yet fully understand why 9/11 happened, but God’s healing grace is still at work. I wish you all a blessed week and hope you will attend the prayer service this Sunday.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. John