A Day I Will Never Forget

For those of us who lived through the events of Sept. 11 twenty-five years ago, we knew that it would be a day that we would never forget.

I was a priest-chaplain leading a pilgrimage through Poland.

During the terrorist attacks, my pilgrimage group and I were in one of the safest places in the world, over 300 feet underground in the ⁠Wieliczka Salt Mine outside Krakow. As soon as we came back to the surface after our tour, the man in the ticket booth waved us over. He pointed to a small black and white TV and said in broken English, “The White House has been bombed.” The TV showed an aerial view of Washington, DC. However, smoke was not rising from the White House, but the Pentagon. We rushed back to our hotel, turned on CNN, and learned about the tragedy.

The spontaneous reaction throughout Poland, in fact, throughout Europe, was to pray for the United States. The television showed that the whole street in front of the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw was carpeted with flowers. I later learned that Pope John Paul II ended his vacation early to return to Rome and lead a prayer service for the United States in St. Peter’s Square.

During the morning of Sept. 11, we had toured the Divine Mercy Shrine in Krakow. It was the place where St. Faustina Kowalska lived at the end of her life, died and is buried. We returned the next day. When they learned that we were from the United States, they escorted us to a private chapel and said that we could pray there as long as we wanted. The priest-chaplain in charge of our group led the Way of the Cross, offering brief meditations on suffering. Instead of bringing me comfort, I felt more isolated and removed from the events unfolding in the U.S.

Later that day, we visited the National Shrine of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, where we celebrated Mass, and prayed before the icon of the “Black Madonna,” an image of the Blessed Virgin Marry holding Jesus. However, the comings and goings of pilgrims throughout the shrine distracted me and made it hard for me to focus.

At the time, radio stations throughout Poland ended their broadcast day at 9 p.m. with prayers transmitted live from the Jasna Góra shrine. On Sept. 12, they decided to broadcast the rosary nationwide from the shrine at 8 p.m. We were there. Since we did not know Polish, we stood in the back of the chapel and whispered the rosary in English.

A man pushed through the crowd and made his way toward us. He came up to me and asked, “Are you Americans?” “Yes.” “Follow me.” Confused, he led me and some other pilgrims through the crowd, out a side door and into a corridor. We turned a corner, went through a door, and found ourselves in the front of the chapel. He said, “Pray the rosary.” Perplexed, I asked, “In English?” “Yes.” The Polish priest praying at the microphone stepped aside.

On Sept. 12, 2001, at the National Shrine of Poland dedicated to Our Lady, we prayed the rosary in English. Although we were thousands of miles away from home, our prayers spiritually united us with our family and friends back in the United States. And we were not alone. The Polish people were praying for them too—and so many others. I felt the power of the Universal Church at prayer.

It was a day that I will never forget.