TEXT: Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 6, 2026
September 6, 2026 Father De Celles Homily
24th Sunday Ordinary Time
September 6, 2026
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
“We will never forget.”
Where were you 25 years ago this Friday, September 11, 2001?
Where were you when you found out that a 747
had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center?
Or that a second plane had crashed into the South Tower?
Or that a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon?
Or that a fourth plane had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania?
Or that the Twin Towers had collapsed to the ground?
Where were you?
Have you forgotten?
Except for some who were too young,
or perhaps not yet immigrated to America,
I don’t think any of us will ever forget.
I was just coming back to my room
after saying 8:30 Mass at St. Andrew’s in Centerville
when I passed the opened door of my pastor’s room
and heard Fox News reporting on the first crash
into the World Trade Center.
And as I went into his room to see what was going on, at 9:02 a.m.,
I saw the second plane crash into the second tower.
And then we heard news about the third crash,
this time just miles away at the Pentagon.
Where were you?
For many of us, I think, it’s seared into our memories.
Some of you were at the Pentagon that day, I know.
And many of you were afraid for dear friends or family members
you knew were there.
We grieved and worried as we knew that in those buildings
were tens of thousands–
husbands and wives, mothers and fathers,
sons and daughters, sisters and brothers,
who had simply gone to work that clear crisp morning,
like so many of the rest of us, and as on so many other days.
And now, so many were trapped seventy stories up in the sky,
or under huge piles of wreckage,
or already consumed by the raging flames or fiery crash.
And so, we grieved.
And we were angry.
Some insane cowardly enemy had attacked us,
unprovoked, without real warning.
They had dared to attack the very heart of our brave military, the Pentagon,
while they were on a peacetime footing, their defenses down.
They had attacked the innocent civilian population
in the heart of our nation’s largest city.
And they seemed to have plans for even more attacks on civilians that day.
So, we were angry.
And there was fear.
Fear of the unknown—we are a free and open society,
and our enemies were aggressively exploiting that:
We were completely vulnerable to almost any kind of terror attack.
Where would they strike next?
The Capital?
The White House?
The Sears Tower in Chicago?
The Mall of America in Minnesota?
We had no idea, and so we were engulfed by fear.
But…in the middle of all those emotions,
something else came to the forefront.
As surprising as the attacks were,
almost equally surprising was another response
common to almost all Americans:
a dramatic national turning toward God in prayer.
Even by the media,
as we heard reporters and anchors repeatedly asking for prayers
and saying things like, “Please, God,” or “They’re in our prayers.”
And what an amazing sight that evening,
as hundreds of members of Congress
gathered on the front steps of the Capitol
and spontaneously broke out singing “God bless America.”
God and prayer were our most secure hope,
and the whole country seemed to understand that.
In our weakness, we became strong,
with our faith in God’s omnipotent care.
And in the days that followed 9/11
that faith remained everywhere you looked.
Millions joined in through TV as thousands packed
the National Cathedral in Washington
and Yankee Stadium in New York
for one purpose: to pray to Almighty God.
Across the nation, especially right here in northern Virginia,
churches everywhere were packed,
as people awoke to the reality of their own mortality
and dependence on God, and His tremendous love for us.
America turned to God, and in Him
our grief was eased with divine consolation and hope;
our anger was controlled and purified by His charity and wisdom;
and our fear was transformed by His courage and strength.
__
“We will never forget.”
That was what we said that day.
But a lot of things have happened since then.
And it seems like many of us have forgotten much more than we should.
But we must never do that.
We must never forget that we have enemies
who have harmed, and are still actively trying to harm, our nation.
We must never forget that 3000 people were killed in the 9/11/01 attacks,
and that thousands of Americans have died,
tens of thousands have been wounded,
and millions have been or are currently deployed (including many of you)
to defend us from future attacks.
We must never forget.
Most especially, we must never forget about God,
and how on that day, and every day since,
He alone was and is our strength and shield
when all human efforts fail, when enemies surround us,
or when life overwhelms us.
That He is always there to give us His
consolation and hope, charity and wisdom, courage and strength.
But today all too many seem to have forgotten that.
Why is it that only twelve days after the terrorist attacks,
tens of thousands of New Yorkers could gather in Yankee Stadium
for a prayer service led by various clerics and politicians,
but twenty-five years after the attacks there will be no prayers said aloud
at the Ground Zero Memorial service?
Sometimes it seems that some folks are embarrassed
by America’s turning to God on 9/11.
Or maybe, they’re just embarrassed that so many Americans turned to
the Christian God.
Worse than that, over the last twenty-five years many have tried to blame God,
or rather faith in God, for 9/11 and its aftermath.
They say that it’s religious faith in God that caused the divisions and antipathy
that led to the 9/11 attack.
And, more and more, they say that we need to learn from that
and remove God and religion from public life.
They say we need to get beyond religious differences.
That we must get rid of any notions that God is on our side
or that Christianity is in any way superior to Islam.
And they say we must be tolerant of, and even encourage or require,
public expressions of Muslim piety, even Sharia law.
At the same time, they continue to work to mock and remove
Christian piety and symbols from art, the media, and public places.
They want us to forget that on 9/11 the vast majority of Americans
turned to Jesus Christ for hope and strength.
They want us to forget that Jesus told us, and we believe,
“I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.”
They want us to believe the religion of Muhammad is just as “good”
as the religion of Jesus Christ.
But the thing is, they are absolutely wrong.
Do NOT misunderstand me.
There are many good and kind Muslims in the world.
There are even many good things about the religion of Islam.
But in the end, Islam is fatally flawed and filled with lies,
and Christianity is the one true faith.
Even if you set aside the fundamental difference between the two,
that on the one hand,
Christians believe that Jesus is God,
and “no one comes to the Father except through” Him,
and that on the other,
Muslims believe Jesus is only a prophet,
Muhammad is the greatest prophet,
and only Muhammad’s teachings can lead us to God.
And even if, for the sake of argument,
we assume that the two religions hold the same moral values,
–which they don’t.
Even then, Islam still has at least this basic flaw: its founder.
When members of these two religions, Christianity and Islam,
try to live by their religion’s teachings in their day-to-day lives,
they inevitably have to understand those teachings
in the light of the example of their founder,
either Jesus or Muhammad.
So. think about the fundamentally different examples they give us.
Muhammad began his religion
by commanding his armed followers to conquer or kill his enemies.
Jesus began His religion
by commanding His apostles to lay down their arms
as He personally surrendered to His enemies.
Muhammad’s hands carried a sword to execute his enemies;
Jesus’ hands carried the Cross and were nailed to the cross
as His enemies executed Him.
Muhammad cursed his enemies;
Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
In short, Muhammad, whatever else he was,
was a man of violence and terror,
while Christ was the Prince of Peace.
Now, some say both Christians and Muslims
do many horrible things in the name of God.
Perhaps.
But the thing is, when Christians feel compelled to resort to violence,
perhaps in self defense or in protection of others,
we always know we must ask ourselves:
What would the Crucified Christ, the Prince of Peace,
have to say about this?
In the light of His life and death on the cross,
the teachings of Christ take on a unique and specific context,
and so set a completely higher standard
than anything found in the platitudes of other religions.
So, when Jesus tells us:
“Love your enemies…bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you,”
we see Him on the cross
not only blessing and praying
for those who curse and abuse Him,
but also Him laying down His life to save them
because He loves them.
Or when Peter asks Jesus,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive?”
and Jesus answers,
“I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times,”
we see Him whipped, spat upon, cursed, crowned with thorns,
nailed to a cross, gasping for breath, bleeding to death.
How many ways and times did they offend that day?
Surely much more than “77 times.”
And yet we hear Him say,
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Yes, Christians sin, and all too often ignore the teachings of Christ.
But the teachings of Christ and the life of Christ
lead us to see ourselves for the sinners we are,
and to hold ourselves to the higher standard of Jesus Himself.
___
And you know, I think that is what has made America
the great country it has been.
Whether people like to admit it or not, our founding fathers
counted on the Christian faith and Christian morals
to enable the people to justly govern themselves.
Yes, we go to war, but we do not enslave our enemies once conquered.
When we defeated the Germans and Japanese in World War II,
we freed them and paid to rebuild their countries.
The same is true in the current war on terror.
Within eighteen months of American troops toppling Sadaam Hussein,
the Iraqi people elected their own government.
And how many American lives have been sacrificed,
and how many tens of billions of American dollars have we spent
to protect and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan
and then withdraw?
Maybe this is overly simplistic, but it seems to me
this is the effect of the Christian moral ethos,
deeply rooted in the soul of our nation,
making us always ready to love our enemy,
and eager to forgive all who offend us.
And I think, too, it’s why we sometimes forget,
even though we promised to “never forget.”
Americans want to forgive and forget and get on with life in peace.
But we must never forget.
Because, while we must love and forgive our enemies,
we must also love and protect our families, neighbors, and country.
And even as we must bless and pray for those who curse and abuse us,
we must also bless those who fight to defend us,
and pray for those who have died at the hand of our enemies.
___
Today, we remember and pray for souls of all those who died
in the 9/11 attacks and in the War on Terror.
We remember and pray for all who have sacrificed so much
to protect our liberty and safety.
We remember that our nation still has enemies who wish to harm us,
both outside and inside our borders.
So, we pray for the safety of our nation.
And in all those prayers we remember that God
was our strength and hope in 2001,
and has been these twenty-five years since.
We remember that God’s name is Jesus Christ,
our teacher, our example, and our savior.
Only by remembering that, by keeping Jesus Christ
in the center of our lives at all times,
can we be, at one and the same time,
both strong as a nation in confronting our enemies
and forgiving of all the harm they do us.
For all this,
for those who died, for those who serve, for our beloved country
and for our faith in Christ,
let us pray that “we will never forget.”