It’s been ten years since that morning when the first plane struck us—5:45am California time, 8:45am New York time. There was a pre-9/11 world, and there is the post-9/11 world we live in now. I can remember waking up that morning, roused by a blast of wind through my window at precisely 5:45am. I didn’t listen to the news that morning while shaving, and so only heard about the attacks from folks at the 8am Mass. It seemed nonsense to me. The second Tower had not yet been hit, but they said one Tower was already down. Ridiculous, I thought. Media hype. Mass hysteria. No one can take those towers down. But down they came, and with them crumbled much of our sense of order and security in America. Life itself, along with our American Way, was revealed in an instant to be so fragile.
The President declared that Friday to be a day of National Prayer. We held a noon Mass at the church, and it was packed out the doors. For several weeks, I saw folks at Mass I had not seen in a long time. But then we got used to a post-9/11 world, and Mass attendance tapered off again.
Why does God allow terrorism? He certainly doesn’t will it, but He does permit it. Coincidentally, the meditation in Magnificat magazine for September 12, 2001, chosen months before the attacks happened, spoke to this question. “How easy it is for us to become dependent on our routines. Friends and possessions surround us. We begin to lose sight of the fact that behind all these things it is God who sustains us. We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable, and give very little thought to God. Somehow, then, God must break through these routines and remind us that we are ultimately dependent only on Him. Then it is, perhaps, that He must allow our whole world to be turned upside down, to bring us to our senses and restore our sense of values….”
As an American, I have to ask, What has our Country learned from 9/11? As a priest, I have to ask, Is God more or less a part of post-9/11 America? Things like terrorist attacks can make us stronger by drawing us closer to God, or they can make us weaker by driving us to depend only on our own resources. Which way, America, in a post 9/11 world?
The President declared that Friday to be a day of National Prayer. We held a noon Mass at the church, and it was packed out the doors. For several weeks, I saw folks at Mass I had not seen in a long time. But then we got used to a post-9/11 world, and Mass attendance tapered off again.
Why does God allow terrorism? He certainly doesn’t will it, but He does permit it. Coincidentally, the meditation in Magnificat magazine for September 12, 2001, chosen months before the attacks happened, spoke to this question. “How easy it is for us to become dependent on our routines. Friends and possessions surround us. We begin to lose sight of the fact that behind all these things it is God who sustains us. We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable, and give very little thought to God. Somehow, then, God must break through these routines and remind us that we are ultimately dependent only on Him. Then it is, perhaps, that He must allow our whole world to be turned upside down, to bring us to our senses and restore our sense of values….”
As an American, I have to ask, What has our Country learned from 9/11? As a priest, I have to ask, Is God more or less a part of post-9/11 America? Things like terrorist attacks can make us stronger by drawing us closer to God, or they can make us weaker by driving us to depend only on our own resources. Which way, America, in a post 9/11 world?
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