A homily for September 11, 2026 (the 25th anniversary)
1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22b-27, Luke 6:39-42
Do you remember where you were when it happened?
We ask each other this question all the time about the life-changing events we’ve experienced … and, often, which we’ve shared.
What did you think and feel when Kennedy was assassinated? When Armstrong walked on the Moon? When the Challenger blew up?
On 9/11?
Few events in our lifetimes, and arguably none in this century, have altered every aspect of … everything … for every person of every age in every country as did the deadly attacks on the sky-blue morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
Loved ones were ripped from us when the Twin Towers fell, when the Pentagon burned, when Flight 93’s passengers sacrificed themselves.
Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters perished on that terrible day, a day that should have been an ordinary workday.
Heroes in first-responder uniforms and street clothes saved lives at the expense of their own.
Tireless rescuers and recovery workers exposed themselves for days and months to toxins that slowly and painfully added their names to the roster of 9/11 victims. And they’re still dying.
About 100 babies were born after their fathers died.
And millions of people have been born in the last 25 years. They have never known a world without checkpoints and metal detectors and deadbolted doors.
In the last quarter-century, Fear has been a constant, unwelcome, utterly detested intruder into our lives. Fear demands a place at our tables, in the shotgun seats of our cars, amid the dust bunnies and monsters under our beds.
And Fear hangs out with its best fiend, Anger. Always a fiend; never a friend.
We’ve fed Fear and Anger for the last 25 years, and for many years before 2001. We’ve cast Fear and Anger to the wind like dandelion fairy parachutes, and their seeds have taken root worldwide.
Everybody everywhere has. Far more than we have. And that’s the ongoing tragedy of September 11, 2001.
When we look back at that day and the decades since then, when we feel fear or anger or xenophobia, when we feel an unkind urge to lash out, we’re giving evil the chance to win.
We can’t let evil win.
The way we recovered, the unity we forged, the divine love that energized us: Those were the true legacies of that evil day. We stood tall. We still stand tall. We will always stand tall, with God’s help.
In the all-too-few days he walked on Earth with us, Jesus preached and healed and sacrificed. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice to show every person ever born, or ever to be born, how much God loves us.
The heroes of 9/11 knew that. They knew, as Jesus said in John’s Gospel:
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
The heroes of 9/11 lived, and died, in that greatest of all loves.
Today we, the Body of Christ, honor heroes, mourn victims, comfort the families battered by loss, and look ahead to see the True Light. The light of compassion, of understanding, of one human family united in caring for everyone. We will live the words of Matthew’s Gospel:
[T]he king will say to [us], “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Every day from now on, we, the Body of Christ, pledge to eradicate evil and snuff out the fires of Fear and Anger.
As Jesus calls us to do.
As our faith and God’s grace guarantee that we can do.
