CHARLOTTE — Churches and Catholic schools across the diocese marked Patriot Day on Friday with prayer services, flag ceremonies, visits with first responders, and through service projects – all aimed at remembering the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and seeking to build a brighter future.
Bishop Michael Martin kicked off the day with an early morning radio appearance reflecting on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on WBT’s Good Morning BT with Bo Thompson and Beth Troutman.
At the time of the terrorist attacks, the bishop was principal of an all-boys Catholic school in Baltimore, just an hour away from the Pentagon, and he recounted the weight of deciding how best to care for his students on that day. The uncertainty and fear he felt in those moments mirrored what millions of Americans felt in the immediate aftermath of the attacks that killed 2,996 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Shanksville, Pennsylvania, field.
“The flood of emotions in that moment were substantial,” Bishop Martin told radio listeners. “The greatest of which was, I have 600 young people here, what am I supposed to do?”
“The issue of terrorism had come home,” he recalled. In that moment, the future bishop’s school gathered in prayer over the PA system.
To mark the day this year, students at Holy Trinity Catholic Academy gathered on the athletic field to pray a patriotic rosary and watched as firefighters raised a flag atop their ladder truck. St. Gabriel School also held a flag ceremony, and St. Ann School held a Blue Mass honoring law enforcement and first responders. Students then made prayer beads and goodie bags for four local fire stations.
WBT took people back to that fateful day by replaying the reporting and commentary that aired on their station, and Bishop Martin noted the passage of time offers deeper perspective.
“As time progresses a little bit, then we start looking for meaning and purpose, and that's where many of us turn to a higher power,” he said. “We turn to something greater. We turn to God and say first and foremost, why and what does this mean, and we start to ask bigger questions and it challenges us.”
The trauma Americans faced collectively on 9/11 is repeated daily on a more personal level, he said.
“There will be people today who will find out that they have… weeks to live because of a medical condition, and that trauma is as real as what we experienced 25 years ago, it's just in this instance it had a communal dynamic,” he said.
After 25 years, he remains hopeful that we can take some lessons from that day.
“We talk a lot about wanting something better for our children,” Bishop Martin noted. “I think one of the ways is to show them how we can move beyond feelings of devastation, anger and hurt to get to a place of forgiveness and acceptance and again that concept of agency – that I can do things differently so that the world is a better place, that we can we can make it better with God's grace.
“There is a strength that we can find in our God who wants our good and walks with us even in our worst moments such as 25 years ago,” he said. “That needs to be the response that all of us have to consider at some point, and a day like today helps us to refocus.”
— Catholic News Herald. Photos provided
St Gabriel School
Across the diocese, Catholic schools and marked Patriot Day in a variety of ways. Students and parishioners attended prayer services and Mass, held flag ceremonies, heard from police and firefighters and participated in service projects to remember the past while praying and acting for a brighter future.
Holy Trinity Catholic Academy
Elsewhere in the diocese
More than 100 parishioners gathered in the chapel with Father Patrick Cahill at St. Matthew Church to pray a rosary for peace to remembered the lives lost 25 years ago on September 11, 2001.
