It has been twenty-two years since life as we had previously known it ended. It ended between the hours of 8:46 AM and 9:37 AM on the Tuesday now referred to as 9/11. It ended in a span of fifty-two minutes. Just fifty-two minutes. Unlike twenty-two years, fifty-two minutes is not a long time and yet those minutes seemed, and still seem, as if they were an eternity. Few things would remain the same or return to what they had been before those fifty-two minutes had elapsed. The idea of “normal” would have to settle at a new baseline. I’m not certain that new baseline has been settled yet.
The scars remain on the psyches of those of us who lived through the ensuing days, weeks, and months of profound grief, a grief that ratcheted up with each reported rise in the death toll that eventually hit 2,977. Memories of fear still echo on sleepless nights. Anger continues to seethe just below the surface, anger directed at the nineteen terrorists whose suicides are frequently dropped from the total number of deaths, as they were here. Perpetrators do not deserve to be counted among their victims.
By 8:00 PM that night monasteries entered into the great silence, a silence that was more profound than usual on 9/11, a silence lacking the sounds of planes flying overhead and traffic rumbling by. The great silence began after the chanting of the Salve Regina, the Church’s final prayer of the day. One wonders how many eyes were free of tears during the words,
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 . . .”
We were plunged into that vale of tears several hours earlier. That night few of us slept. Many wept through the night as they prayed for those who had died and for those who survived them. Over the weeks and months that followed lists of the dead and stories of heroic action, oftentimes at the cost of one’s life, began to appear. Sixteen Penn Staters died. They were:
Kermit Anderson, 1965, Mathematics;
Patrick Dwyer, 1986, Finance;
Michael Ferugio, 1987, Industrial Engineering;
Scott Hazelcorn, 1994, Accounting;
Howard L. Kane, 1983,, Accounting;
David Kovalcin, 1983, Mechanical Engineering
Michele Nelson, 1985, Psychology;
Michael Pescherine, 1991, Finance
Jean Roger, 1999
David Suarez, 1999, Industrial Engineering,
All but one of them graduated after my 1971 departure from University Park to North Philadelphia and beyond. However, as Nittany Lions we shared something important during our separate experiences be they in the seventies, eighties or nineties. It is a commonality that would have been the path to deeper sharing were we to have met. Ya’ can’t talk about Creamery Ice Cream without learning a lot about the other no matter the age difference.
Among the most remarkable of the stories of heroism and self-sacrifice was that of Welles Crowther, one of twenty-two Boston College alumni who died in the terrorist attack. Crowther, a 1999 economics graduate, worked as an equities trader and volunteer fireman. He is credited with saving 19 lives before he perished, while returning to the building to rescue others. His body was not found until March 22, 2002. Since 2014 BC has designated one football game per year as the “Red Bandana Game” in his memory. This year’s game will be on Saturday, September 16. More information on Crowther can be found online at https://www.gnbvt.edu/the-man-in-the-red-bandana/#:~:text=The%20red%20bandana%20is%20a,courage%2C%20and%20his%20overall%20being. It is an inspiring story.
Today, as has been true for the past twenty-two years, we are called to pray for the victims of the terrorists, the victims who died in the planes, the towers, and those on the ground, many of whom were first-responders who risked their lives attempting to save others. There are others who, while not counted among those killed directly, saw their health irreparably damaged from toxic exposures, damage that resulted in premature deaths.
We pray for the families and loved ones who remain bereaved and grieving. We pray for the orphaned children, the infants and children in the womb who grew up without knowing their parent and others who faced the joys and hurdles of life without the dead parent’s guidance. And we pray in particular for the parents of the many men and women who died, parents bereft by the deaths of their children, the most anguished form of grief there is.
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."
____________________________
Rather than a photo or twelve, there is a YouTube of the Lux Aeterna by Edward Elgar, adapted from the “Nimrod” variation of his Engima Variations. The lyrics are similar to the end of this homily and come from the Catholic liturgy for the dead. As you listen to it think back to that awful day and the days and weeks that followed.
Lux
aeterna luceat eis, Domine,
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis, quia pius es.
May
eternal light shine on them, Lord,
with your saints for ever, for you are good.
Give them eternal rest, Lord,
and may light perpetual shine upon them, for you are good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXMBMoewAw4
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