Reflections on 9-12-01

Although the number of worshippers had been larger than normal, the church was unusually quiet following the 6:30 am liturgy. The few people who remained seemed to have an inherent need for silence. The mood had been extremely somber during Mass, and by now almost everyone had gone home, perhaps there was some further news... maybe even some good news.
I was in my favored pew -- three up from the rear on the right-hand side of the church -- and my breviary was open. But I couldn’t focus on the readings, couldn’t process the words. Too much had happened the day before. My prayers this morning were simple and monosyllabic. “Who?” “How?” “Why?”
Yesterday, September 11, 2001, as people witnessesed and were overwhelmed by the scope of the tragedy in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania, the church office began to receive a trickle of calls, “Will the church be open for prayer?”
About noon the pastor announced, “If anyone wants, we will have a special Mass at seven this evening.”
“If anyone wants…” By 6:45 every seat in the church was filled and the overflow went beyond the small vestibule and poured out on the sidewalks. Word had circulated first among the school families and parents of children in the Religious Education program. From there an informal phone tree branched out to the entire parish. Families came to church and sat together as families ¾ something that had become uncommon at the Sunday services. Fathers protectively draped their arms over their children. Mothers clutched their youngest close to their hearts. Attendance had been spurred by a common, visceral need to be together as family… and to be in church.
This morning, September 12, the initial shock is beginning to morph into questioning. How many died? Are there survivors buried in the debris? How can people do this? Why did this happen? Where is God? The questions keep getting tougher and will continue to do so in the days and weeks ahead. But it is still early in the day. Most people are still at home, having stayed up late watching and listening to the news reports.
One of the few people remaining in church is a man in his mid-twenties, tall and trim. As he arises from his knees in a pew at the opposite corner of the church and prepares to leave, he spots me and begins to head toward my pew. In spite of his athletic build, his walk is empty of energy, as if the events of the day before had drained him of his vigor.
When he gets back to the pew I am in, he stops and softly says, “Excuse me, my name is Mike, I know you don’t know me but I am here today because of something you said in a homily last summer. I just wanted you to know that.”
My expression must have conveyed my confusion as he went on to explain, “You see, I’m a police officer, and I just got off duty. But I had to come to church before I went home. Last night, as I was patrolling the streets in my car, I was listening to the news on the radio. The reports kept coming in. All night long the body count just increased and it seems they are not finding any survivors in the rubble. I lost over 300 brothers yesterday.”
I was moved by the degree of emotion in his voice. It was unexpected in a young man so obviously in his prime and used to being in control.
He went on to say, “Those firefighters and police officers who died at the World Trade Center were my brothers and sisters. That’s the work I do. As my shift ended, before I went home, I knew I had to come here. To pray for them, to pray for their families… just to pray. It’s because of that homily you gave last summer.”
When I asked, “Which homily?” he began to explain. As he did so, I gained an appreciation of why I was in church that day as well.
In that homily I used a quote I heard used by Garrison Keillor, who attributed it to Billy Sunday. The quote was simply, “Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”
I used that quote to put forth the premise that, even though time spent in church doesn’t make us Christian, it can benefit us in the same way that time spent in a garage can benefit an automobile. We keep our cars in garages at home to protect them from the weather and to secure them from threats of theft and vandalism. A garage is also a place to service an automobile. A place where we repair that which is broken, refuel the empty tank, put air in the tires, check all the working parts and tune up the engine. All so that the car is prepared to do the job for which it was made -- to leave the garage and go out into the world and function as an automobile.
We come to church for similar reasons -- to protect ourselves from an antagonistic world; for shelter from harmful elements, to repair the broken spirit, refuel the soul, to make sure that we are in good working order. All so we can do what Christians are intended to do -- to leave the church and go out into the world to function as witnesses to the Good News of the risen Christ. We are not Christian because we spend time in church, but church is the place that a wounded Christian can come to be repaired and put in proper working order.
As Mike related his story, I confess I felt a certain amount of pride that someone actually remembered one of my homilies. But that pride was tempered with embarrassment that I had forgotten my own lesson. I was in church that morning as much out of habit as out of need. I struggled with the ritual prayers while ignoring my need for healing. There was a disconnect as I attempted to deal with the tragedy on an intellectual level. It wasn’t my intellect that had been damaged, it was my spirit. My spirit needed answers, and protection from a world that had suddenly became much more threatening.
Mike had taken the lesson to heart. When he found himself spiritually broken, he brought himself to church for repair. He needed to spend time with the divine mechanic before he could once again go out and do his job. I think he got the tune-up he needed.