THE TOWER OF REMEMBRANCE
One person's recollections


during construction

For what seemed like an eternity that Tuesday morning, September ll, evil seemed to grip our world. Shock numbed everyone. But not for long.

Firemen dashed to the carnage, policemen shepherded the dazed to safety, medics transported the wounded, volunteers searched for survivors, and strangers came to console the broken-hearted.


Here at the Shrine of St. Joseph, Fr. Peter Krebs, S.T. and Mr. Raymond Donovan saw and heard the people who lost loved ones, who came to the Shrine seeking comfort and solace. "My husband, he was the best". "My daughter, so happy and full of life . . . engaged to be married next year". "My son, so good to me, always with a smile on his face". "My neighbor, always wanting to help". "My best friend, what will I ever do without her?"

It was for these people and all the others that Fr. Peter and Mr. Donovan created the Tower of Remembrance. The union of World Trade Center steel and the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity Seminary bells honor those who headed out to work that morning to provide for their families, and unknowingly went to their deaths. The Tower remembers the daughter who called home after the second plane hit and told her Mother over and over that she loved her. It is a tribute to the son who wouldn’t leave the handicapped worker behind. It honors the fireman who rushed in to free those trapped by fear and twisted metal. It remembers the neighbor who hugged a petrified stranger as the plane slammed into the Pentagon. It honors the policeman who shielded others with his body. It remembers the friend who stood to defy evil as the plane dove into a Pennsylvania countryside. It honors the Priest who knelt over a dying man to administer the Last Rites, the last thing he would ever do.

The Tower of Remembrance stands proud and tall at the Shrine of St. Joseph. It is here that people come to see and touch two columns of steel angled like hands raised in prayer and hear bells that are silent no more.

It is in this Tower of Remembrance that the loud and clear pealing of bells call us to heal, call us to remember and call us to God.

- by Sue Ellen Gilligan