A Reflection on Spiritual and Emotional Healing Following the World Trade Center Tragedy
Most Rev. Thomas V. Daily, Bishop of Brooklyn

September 14, 2001

I know I am not alone when I say that searing images have penetrated my consciousness since Tuesday. From my office in Fort Greene that morning, I stood in stunned silence as I watched brilliant flames and black, billowing smoke across the river, and I feared for the toll in human lives.

Two days later, as I walked through the rubble of what once was a crown jewel of our City, the Twin Towers and the surrounding streets, I saw in the grim faces of the brave and generous rescue workers how much these infamous acts by terrorists had touched the soul of our nation.

Today, as on every recent day, I ask myself how each of us can heal emotionally and spiritually from this chilling, cataclysmic event. For the families of the victims, healing after the way they lost loved ones may escape them for the rest of their lives. And who would question it?

Not a theologian, not a philosopher, but a wife and mother in Brooklyn has given her own response to the question of healing. Tara Stackpole lost her husband, Fire Captain Timothy Stackpole, in the collapse of Tower 1. Suddenly taken from her was the father of their five children, the oldest 18, the youngest seven.

Last Saturday, I chatted with Timmy Stackpole at the annual Great Irish Fair in Coney Island. He was being honored as the Irish-American of the Year. Tara was there, of course. Theirs was a great love story.

When Timmy died three days later, Tara spoke about a sadness that was unbearable, about facing life forever without him. Unbelievably, she said she was not bitter because he died doing what he loved---serving our City as a firefighter, indeed as a courageous one who, after surviving an earlier encounter with death in an East New York fire, told a reporter that God "told me in my prayers, in my mind, to hold on."

Tara is holding on as she copes with a devastating loss. I, a person ordained to proclaim the Christian faith, am in awe of her own faith, of her reliance on God's mercy and goodness to help her at an excruciatingly painful time. She calls for forgiveness and prayer because that was what Timmy would have wanted. Two extraordinary people have given us a gospel of life, one that will expand in time as survivors write their own chapters.

In light of such unspeakable actions committed on innocent people, is every person bearing loss at this time able to hold on emotionally as Tara did after Timmy's first encounter with death? Can she continue to do so now? Psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists are better equipped to provide that answer. Can she continue to hold on spiritually? She has given her answer.

When I celebrated Mass at St. James Cathedral Basilica in Brooklyn on Tuesday after the crashes into the Twin Towers, I looked for words that might be appropriate in the wake of the terrifying events of the morning. I turned simply to my Christian belief.

As people of faith, I told the congregation, perhaps all we could do at that moment was to hold a Crucifix in our hands, gaze on the image of Jesus Who died on the cross, and talk to Him for consolation.

It was my response, even as I grieved with the families whose lives were shattered by their loss. It remains my response. I pray for the victims, the survivors, their families and our country.

(This was published in the New York Post Sept. 16 and The Tablet Sept 22.)