Monday, September 10, 2001. Twenty-one years ago yesterday.
It was a routine day, perhaps even a humdrum one. As we faced a week of work or school, we might have consoled ourselves with memories of the previous weekend or plans for the coming one. It was the 23rd Monday of ordinary time. Green vestments. The gospel for the day asked, “. . . is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”
We didn’t know it at the time, but September 10, 2001 was the last full day of life as we had known it up to then. Around 7:30 that evening the monasteries in Spencer, Wrentham, and throughout the country,chanted the Church’s final prayer of the day.
Salve Regina, Mater misericordia,
Vita dulcedo et spes nostra salve . .
“Hail holy Queen,
mother of Mercy
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope . . “
Silence fell upon those houses of prayer.
Out in the world, we went to bed as usual. It was a school night or work night for most. Some drifted off into a deep sleep while others tossed and turned with worry about family, finances, an upcoming quiz, or the weather forecast. The terrorists knew it would be their last night alive. None of their thousands of victims were aware that when they went to bed that Monday night they would see their final sunrise upon awakening. They did not know that they would never kiss their children again after leaving for work. Others would receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord in what would be their last holy communion.
When we woke on September 11, 2001 some of us felt refreshed and eager for the day to begin. Others wanted another hour or six of sleep. It was time to brush the teeth, take a shower, and have the first several cups of coffee. At 8:45 AM EDT on September 11, 2001, we were on the way to work or at school. Some were on a morning run. Others walked the dog. Routine daily tasks had to be done. Perhaps it was the first day on a new job. The sixty seconds between 8:45 and 8:46 marked the last moments of normal life.
Everything changed at 8:46 AM EDT when American Airlines flight 11 struck the North tower of the World Trade Center.
United Airlines flight 175 was commandeered and crashed into the South tower
twenty-seven minutes later at 9:13 EDT.
The killers flew American Airlines flight 77 into the west side of the Pentagon at 9:37 EDT.
Ziad Jarrah trained as a pilot here in the U.S. His plan to crash United Airlines flight 93
on a target in D.C. were thwarted after a struggle with heroic pilots, flight staff, and passengers. The plane crashed in an empty field near Shanksville, PA at 10:03 EDT.
The attacks were over.
It took time for the true horror to sink in as the count of victims would mount over the ensuing days. Stories of extraordinarily heroic acts were many. But they were outweighed by those of personal and communal tragedy.That night, the words of the Salve, held a particular poignancy.
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Evae
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle
To you do we cry poor banished children of Eve
To you do we send up our sighs mourning and weeping
in this vale of tears . . .
That night few of us slept.
Many tears were shed throughout the night.
The vast majority of undergrads on this campus today were not born at the time of the attacks in 2001. But for those of us who lived through those dreadful days days that have come to be called 9/11we still wonder, grieve, and weepas the pain of that time
flashes back.
Today, as we have for the past twenty-one years, we pray for the victims of the terrorists, the victims who died in the planes, the towers, and those on the ground. We pray for their families and loved ones, the orphaned children, and the parents bereft by the death of a child.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Requiescant in pace.
"Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace."
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