Students, faculty, friends and family gathered in Gaston Hall for a Friday morning Mass in memory of the Georgetown alumni, faculty and family who perished in the terrorist events of Sept. 11.
University President John J. DeGioia began the ceremony invoking the common bond shared among a community gathered in sorrow. With faith and community, DeGioia urged the University to continue its mission while remembering those lost in the events of Sept. 11.
“Our faith calls us to carry the torch into the darkness. We take that step here, in prayer,” DeGioia said. “Our lives are a web of connections. Today we are joined together by a bond forged in sorrow,” he said.
The All Souls Day Mass, celebrated by Rev. Brian O. McDermott, S.J., memorialized the 11 alumni, two faculty and staff members and the 12 close relatives of members of the Georgetown community who were killed in the terrorist attacks.
In his homily, McDermott described the life-giving power of death.
“We must engage God. Our deaths within life become passages to greater life,” McDermott said. “We need to learn to suffer deaths in love as well as anger and serious questioning.”
“We live from hope given to us by the Holy Spirit of God. Our pain during life amounts to something,” he said.
McDermott said All Souls Day is a holiday that has been recognized by the Western Church since the 10th century, as a meditation on the peculiarities, confusion and hope surrounding death. The day commemorates the faithfully departed and contemplates the mystery surrounding death, he said.
McDermott said the innocent victims of Sept. 11 experienced death as a violent interruption of life. He described the “alien” quality of sudden death, where victims’ lives are cut off leaving family and friends bereft of closure. However, amidst this carnage, we can better see the truth, McDermott said.
“We, each of us, are suspended over an abyss of nothingness. God’s creative acts posit us in existence. We belong to God and nothing can change this,” McDermott said. “All of those who lived with an acceptance, a modicum of openness, live with God.”
