TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO TODAY

 A REFLECTION FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11

Today’s anniversary of 9/11 gives us pause to reflect upon certain painful memories of the past.  As Christians, however, and particularly as Catholics who follow the traditional liturgy untarnished by the assaults of the modernists, the memories of that awful day are mitigated by the very feastdays that surround it.  As we remember those poor men and women, they say between 100 and 250, who had no choice that day but to jump hundreds of feet to their death, and those others who remained trapped in the twin towers only to feel the floor beneath them give way and collapse—let’s say a prayer to yesterday’s saint, St. Nicholas of Tolentino.  If only they had known the comfort of having prayed on the eve of their death to this patron of the very Holy Souls whom they were about to join!

God knew of our trauma and anguish that day.  And he prepared us for it by allowing it to take place in the only liturgical week of the year in which no less than three feasts of Our Lady occur:  her Nativity on September 8^th, her Holy Name on the 12^th, and her Seven Sorrows on the 15^th.  Who better to comfort us in those dark days than this loving Mother, comforter of the afflicted, at whose feet we so often fall in times like this, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.  Think of those poor victims trapped in the towers collapsing under their feet, and read the words of St. Bernard in the second Nocturn of tomorrow’s Matins.   It could have been written especially for them, and for their bereaved families:

“O thou, whosoever thou art, that knowest thyself to be here not so much walking upon firm ground, as battered to and fro by the gales and storms of this life's ocean, if thou wouldest not be overwhelmed by the tempest, keep thine eyes fixed upon this star's clear shining.  If the hurricanes of temptation rise against thee, or thou art running upon the rocks of trouble, look to the star, call on Mary… if thou begin to slip into the deep of despondency, into the pit of despair, think of Mary.”

And what of that feast on September 11, itself, Saints Protus and Hyacinth, whom we celebrate today?  The still undisturbed grave of St. Hyacinth was discovered as recently as 1845, in a crypt of the Catacomb of St. Hermes in Rome.  The grave was identified by the inscription D P III IDUS SEPTEBR YACINTHUS MARTYR (Buried on 11 September Hyacinthus Martyr).  In the same chamber were found fragments of an architrave belonging to some later decoration, with the words:  SEPULCRUM PROTI M(artyris) (Grave of the Martyr Protus).  Thus both martyrs were buried in the same crypt.  Pope Damasus wrote an epitaph in honour of the two martyrs, part of which still exists (Ihm, "Damasi epigrammata", 52, 49). In the epitaph Damasus calls Protus and Hyacinth brothers.  The Roman Breviary also refers to them as “brethren”, two brothers who were mercilessly attacked by the pagans, twin towers of the faith whose bodies were destroyed but whose spirits rise again as a symbol of hope in adversity, of the triumph of the Cross over its enemies.

The Cross did indeed triumph.  Just two days after the attack, in the course of the massive operation to find survivors amongst the rubble, a worker at the site discovered a 20-foot cross of two steel beams amongst the debris of the World Trade Center.  Those with access to the site, rescue workers, then construction workers, police and firefighters, families of the victims, immediately began to honor this cross, using it as a focal point for their messages and prayers.  It was the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  You can still see this cross in the National September 11^th Memorial and Museum.  Is it our imagination that this scrap of metal from the North Tower was given by God on this day to become a shrine for thousands?  If you think so, tell that to the loved ones of those who died on 9/11, and those who have found solace at the foot of this cross.  Tell it to the family who stood before it in silence, before placing the personal effects of their loved one beneath it, prompting one of the onlookers to exclaim:  "It was as if the cross took in the grief and loss.  I never felt Jesus more."