Print Issue: September 5, 2002

Prayer Services Mark Day Of Remembrance For Victims Of September 11 Attacks

By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer

CUMMING - From morning to night on Sept. 11, St. Brendan Church will be remembering in prayer the estimated 3,043 people who were killed by terrorists on that beautiful fall day one year ago as they went about their work in New York and Washington, or boarded doomed airplanes.

"The parish as a whole has been strongly affected and very supportive since 9/11," said parishioner Bill O'Brien. "From 8:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night, something will be going on."

The events include an 8:30 a.m.-10:35 a.m. Morning of Remembrance with music, prayer and bell-ringing as the times of attacks and building collapses are recalled; a noon Mass of healing and remembrance; and an evening Taizé prayer service that will conclude outdoors in candlelight with bagpipers.

Archbishop John F. Donoghue, who will preside at a 7 p.m. Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta, has asked the archdiocese to set aside at least a part of the day, the whole day if possible, to pray for those who died last Sept. 11, for their grieving survivors, and for peace in the world.

"Peace is possible in the world, if we can but agree to accept it from the hands of Jesus Christ," Archbishop Donoghue said in a letter to the people of the archdiocese. (See page 8)

The Mass cath the cathedral will be accompanied by organist Timothy Wissler and the Cathedral Choir. Masses and prayer services are being held in most parishes.

The bond between the Cumming parish and New York firefighters was established when O'Brien, son of a Chicago policeman, invited two firemen from Engine 1, Ladder 24 to St. Brendan's last winter. The firehouse lost six at the World Trade Center and was home base for Father Mychal Judge, Franciscan chaplain to the FDNY, who was among the first killed.

Firefighters John Montani and Brian Thomas came, O'Brien said, cementing personal friendships with the parish, Forsyth County firemen and county commissioners.

"They talked about the personal losses at their firehouse. They talked about the families. They were here all weekend. It was magnificent. They spoke at every Mass. At our Spanish Mass they had a translator . . . They were hugely received," he said.

The firehouse made blue T-shirts with their emblem and "never forget" on it. "We sold almost 2,000 shirts. St. Brendan's raised $30,000 for those families. That fund was called the Father Mychal Judge Memorial Fund."

O'Brien, who put them up, said they sat around for hours talking, impressing everyone who stopped by as "completely unassuming" men who were "amazed" at how people responded to the needs of firefighters and their families after Sept. 11.

The parish liturgy committee, chaired by Paul Tate and Kathy Sexton, has planned the day of prayer at St. Brendan's. O'Brien is on the parish executive committee.

The evening service will begin at 7 p.m. The first 45 minutes or so will be a Taizé service inside the church. At the end candles will be lit and people will process from the church to "Serenity Lane," a park on the grounds with waterfalls, rocks and flowers. A candlelight service out there will include the tolling of a bell from the Forsyth County Fire Department and prayers of remembrance and healing. Then a bagpiper will play on one of the bridges overlooking the water.

In the church lobby will be a picture of the firemen who were killed and a framed American flag that has the names of the more than 2,800 World Trade Center casualties.

Through e-mail and phone calls, O'Brien said he stays in touch and hears that the firemen "are coming along," but that the families are still "going through a lot of difficulties."

He will never forget what he saw when Engine 1 firemen took him "into ground zero" last winter while recovery efforts were still going on.

"Those men took me down into ground zero. I was standing where the south tower once stood. It was very, very powerful," O'Brien said. "You realize you are standing on hallowed ground. And to see those men still digging - they are incredible human beings. Without a doubt the presence of God was there. As horrific as it was, the presence and peace of God was there without a doubt."

A newly formed choir in Rockdale County, the Summer Choral Union, led by David Houston, director of music at St. Pius X Church, Conyers, will sing Faure's "Requiem" in a memorial concert on Sunday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m.

"The Summer Choral Union started this summer with 35 singers. It is not just people normally involved in the music program, but people from throughout the parish. It gives people who are busy normally during the school year the opportunity to do something for the parish," Houston said.

A small orchestra of 11 musicians from Rockdale County and Atlanta will accompany the singers. The program will last about one hour. There is no charge, but there will be an offering taken at the end.

"This is the first requiem Mass sung here at St. Pius. It will be sung in Latin. I think it will be very moving for all those who attend," he said. "We are also doing a few other pieces of music, 'The Heavens Are Telling' by Franz Joseph Haydn, 'O, Taste and See,' by Ralph Vaughan Williams; and a hymn I composed for this occasion, to words by John Mason, 'How Shall I Sing That Majesty.'"

Houston, who just marked his first year as St. Pius music director, said he has found himself, and other choir members, thinking not just of Sept. 11, but about their own loved ones and family members who have died in recent years."

"Sometimes when anniversaries come along, we consciously don't realize what is happening, but things from the past will affect us. I expect there will be high emotions for several days.

"A choir member (at rehearsal) prayed for those saints who had fallen last year to pray for us, to guide us in our preparation and performance. I thought that was very fitting," he said.