Remembering 9/11

On September 11, 2001, 10 alumni—John Ryan '74†, Edmund McNally '78†, Christopher Hanley '84†, Michael Andrews '85†, John Farrell '87†, Jimmy Riches '89†, Matthew Burke '91†, Sean Lugano '91†, James Coyle '93†, and Charles Heeran '96†—perished at the World Trade Center.

Fr. Vin Biagi, S.J. '67 remembers them in the reflection below. May they and all those we lost that day rest in God's peace.

Images of September 11, 2001, are forever seared into our memories. I can recall as if it were yesterday sitting in my office the morning after, thinking of what had happened, trying somehow to make sense of it all. Every so often as I sat there, the phone would ring and I would listen to parents cry for their missing son or former students worry about a missing friend. So many stories…about phone calls made from trapped husbands to tell their wives that they loved them…about a father and son gone to search through the rubble for a missing son and brother. And I remembered their faces…the faces of young men who laughed and played puff basketball in my office…whom I drove to basketball and baseball and rugby games…and my heart broke remembering them, their families, their friends.

We still remember 15 years later. So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are still a part of us, as we remember them. But, it is not just with a deep sense of loss that we recall them, but also with a deep sense of gratitude. We still hurt deeply because of their absence, but in our grateful hearts their memories become a source of life, not just a reminder of loss.

So, we remember those whose lives were lost in the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001. We give thanks for the selfless courage of those brave souls who ran into burning buildings and who labored in the rubble. Their courage remains a witness for all of us of what is possible when we are guided by love and dedication to our fellow human beings. We continue to pray for the healing of all those suffering emotional and physical scars. May we move from suffering to hope, from brokenness to wholeness, from anxiety to courage, from death to life, from fear to love, and from despair to hope. May God guide our feet into the way of peace, so that we might become instruments of that peace in this world.