Tag: 9/11

Remembering

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, peace, Prayer, Service2 Comments

September 11, 2024

Every one of us remembers where we were on September 11, 2001. Like the elders among us who remember Pearl Harbor and the assassinations of MLK, JFK, and RFK, the current generation will always be marked by that infamous day.

Evil became visible that day. We saw its face in the terrorists. We saw its deadly scars on 2,819 innocent people and their loved ones. We have watched its echoes across two decades that have become more vigilant and less trusting.

Besides the victims in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, so much else died on September 11th. Innocence died; universal trust died; unconditional acceptance died. And with their loss, our national soul was put in jeopardy.

Healing
But within a few hours of the attacks, we saw the human spirit raise its head. Acts of tremendous courage, love, support, and generosity became the new face of September 11th. A dormant patriotism was unfurled in millions of flags across America. Who will ever forget how KIND we became to one another when faced with the reality of one another’s vulnerability.

Learning
And so, all indications to the contrary, we learn even from the darkest evil. Throughout history, good people have learned from bad things such as:
The Holocaust:
“In spite of everything, I still believe
that people are truly good at heart….
that this cruelty too will end…”
(Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp)

War:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed.”
(President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Five-star General
and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, World War II.)

Institutionalized Slavery:
“I had reasoned this out in my mind,
there was one of two things I had a right to,
liberty or death;
if I could not have one,
I would have the other.”
(Harriet Tubman, formerly enslaved woman who led many others to freedom
by the Underground Railroad)

Choosing
What have we learned from September 11th and who will we choose to be due to our learning? All of us want a better world for ourselves and our children. We want less fear and more trust. We want less struggle and more peace. We want less tension and more freedom. What we want will never come to us unless we choose to live it into being.
A quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi puts it this way:
“You must choose to be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Leading such change requires great bravery. Gandhi also said this,
“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”

Acting
So, on this 23rd Commemoration of September 11th, let us be brave enough to change the world. Courage and kindness stand side by side because they both require self-sacrifice.
To commemorate the lives lost that day, we may choose to make one act of anonymous, unrewarded kindness. Do it to make the world kinder, to contribute to a legacy for the future, to send a message that evil never triumphs, and to remember the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001.

Some ideas that won’t cost you much (from helpothers.org)
• Tape the exact change for a soda to a vending machine
• Treat someone to a cup of their favorite coffee
• Pay the toll for the person behind you
• Leave a treat in the kitchen at work
• Write a note of appreciation to someone
• Smile from your heart at strangers.
• Greet others when you pass them.
• Offer to babysit for free for new parents so they can sleep or spend time with each other.
• Spend time with an elderly person.
• Buy flowers for someone in your office who’s having a rough time.
• Leave a good book at a bus stop.
• Instead of following normal tipping etiquette, leave a little extra.
• Be kind to someone who isn’t always kind to you.
• Cook a meal for someone who is sick, elderly, or just had a baby.
• Pay someone’s expired parking meter.
• Visit someone in hospice care.
• Let someone go in front of you in line while you’re doing your grocery shopping.
• If you experience great service, compliment the worker and tell their manager.
• Give sincere compliments whenever you can.
• If you see an elderly person having trouble pumping their gas at a gas station, offer to do it for them.
• Leave the coupons you didn’t use at the register for someone else.
• Spend time with people in nursing homes. More often than not, they are lonely.

Remembering Our Way Home…

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, justice, peace, suffering2 Comments

Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

September 11, 2019

Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, the world will remember the abomination of the 9/11 attacks when nearly 3000 innocent lives were sacrificed to hatred, vengeance, and cowardice.

Some will remember in anger; some in forgiveness. Some will remember in grief; some in triumph. Some will remember with a will to seek peace; some with a drive to wreak endless retribution. Some with unquenchable sorrow; some with a false and self-destructive pride.

Some, too jaded by the years of savagery since then, will remember the day with despair.

Some, too young to remember at all, will simply try to grow up in the fragmented world it has left them.

Tragically, some throughout the world are so devastated by their own sufferings that there is no energy to remember. Some have endured war and oppression for so long that there is no peace to remember.

We in the human family were not created to live like this. 

Col3_4 christ appears

Paul tells us that we …

… were raised with Christ, so seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.

Jesus tells us that when that glory comes, it will be these who appear with him..

Blessed are you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
“Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.

On this anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and on every day of our lives, we have a choice of how we will see the world, of how we will love or hate, embrace or exclude our sisters and brothers. Every day, we have choices to make about how we will allow, ignore, or stand against hate, division, oppression and indifference to human suffering.

We may think our power is small to change the world. But it is the only power we have or need. With those graced and intentional choices we…

… have taken off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self,
which is being renewed, for knowledge,
in the image of its Creator.

Today, as we remember, let us also be excruciatingly aware of those who continue to suffer … at the world’s hard borders, in the Bahamas, Syria, Yemen, Rakhine, and in every place where abusive domination and greedy indifference crushes innocent life.

Music: When We Go Home, We Go Together- Pure Heart Ensemble 

Never Forget

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Courage, Faith, Hope, Love3 Comments

Tuesday, September 11, 2018
A Day of Remembrance 

Jer20_11 Sept11

Today, in Mercy, almost anyone who has come of age remembers where we were this day seventeen years ago. We remember the horrifying scenes, the crushing sadness, the swelling anger, the hardening resolve.

Over these years, we have remembered again and again the innocent lives lost and hearts shattered. 

We have remembered, with a never-to-be-reclaimed nostalgia, a world of unguarded and comfortable safety.

Understandably, the memories have left many of us smaller, harder and meaner.

A question for our reflection today might be this. How do we remember inflicted pain in a way that makes us:

  • determined not vengeful
  • wise not judgmental
  • resilient not fearful
  • united not isolated 

We must do this because to do otherwise is to be consumed by the hatred that our enemy has heaped on us. And that would allow evil its victory.

So, on this solemn day, let us never forget. 

But let us remember with reverence, hope, faith, and love – and the unquenchable strength these engender. Let us remember with a grace that ennobles our loss, letting it empower rather than weaken us.

Music: In a Peaceful Valley (The Dance of Innocents)
~ Peter Kater & Nawang Khechog

Pray with this beautiful music and allow it to bless, heal, and release the sacred power of your memories.