OFFICIAL WEB SITE
Posted on 09/09/2007 6:11:03 AM PDT by NYer
NEW YORK (CNS) -- Six years later, the sound of fire engines brings Maryknoll Father Raymond Nobiletti back to ground zero. "Whenever I hear them, I have to stop and remind myself where I am," he said.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Father Nobiletti answered an urgent call for priests from St. Andrew's Parish near the World Trade Center. He and two other priests from Transfiguration Parish in New York's Chinatown grabbed their stoles and holy oils and made their way through the sea of horrified people fleeing north.
"The second plane had hit and it was clear that this was not an accident," he recalled. "We were bumping the shoulders of the people running the other way."
At the scene, the priests were sent in different directions. Father Nobiletti was stationed near an ambulance in front of the Millennium Hotel, where people from the north tower of the World Trade Center were being evacuated. "It was a horror," he said. "People were coming out burned, screaming and disoriented.
"I was a magnet. People were grabbing me and crying and asking me to help them contact their loved ones," Father Nobiletti said. As he knelt over the injured, he said, "there were chunks of stuff coming down all around us. I'm glad I didn't look up."
If he had, he might have seen the news photographers capturing both the chaos and his comforting presence in photos that were beamed around the world.
He did look up when he heard the roar made by the collapse of the south tower. "I ran and held onto the gate at the cemetery of St. Paul's chapel. I thought it was going to be the last thing I was ever going to see. Two people were holding onto my thighs to keep from getting swept away," he said. "I couldn't breathe. Everything was dark for eight to ten minutes."
When the brown-gray dust cleared enough for him to get to his feet, Father Nobiletti said, his ears and nose were clogged and he had cuts on his face. "People were crying and screaming. A policeman lying in the street yelled to us to get out of where we were." The warning was timely, because as Father Nobiletti made it around to the other side of St. Paul's chapel, the north tower collapsed.
Father Nobiletti said that as he walked back to his parish, not knowing what to expect there, a man he knew doused him with water from an office water cooler. "It was a thoughtful gesture," said Father Nobiletti with a smile, "but it turned all the dust into something like cement."
When he arrived at Transfiguration, the students being evacuated from the parish school looked at him with horror and did not recognize him.
Father Nobiletti went to the rectory, which occupies the top floor of the school. He assumed that his two priest colleagues had perished and he was dreading having to let their religious superiors know that they were lost. Instead, he found them drinking coffee.
They had been diverted to another street near ground zero and then evacuated before they were able to minister to anyone. Father Nobiletti and his staff then opened the doors of Transfiguration and sat outside talking and listening to the people who came by.
Of his experiences that day, Father Nobiletti said, "It was a real privilege to be there and a great affirmation for the priesthood." Months later, when a badly burned survivor returned home from rehabilitation, she gave an interview crediting "the priest who prayed over me" and the medical personnel for saving her life. Reporters identified him from pictures taken on Sept. 11.
"And then all kinds of people started calling," he said. Some thanked him; others asked if he had seen their sons or daughters. "They were looking for closure. It was very touching and very sad."
On the day of the terrorist attacks, there were 19 Transfiguration parishioners missing, but ultimately, there were three fatalities, including one firefighter.
"So many of the people in the neighborhood were new immigrants, working at menial jobs in and around the World Trade Center," said Father Nobiletti. "Some of our people were ferried to New Jersey on the boats that were used to evacuate Lower Manhattan. They didn't speak English, their cell phones didn't work and it took them awhile to get back."
Father Nobiletti, a native New Yorker, speaks Cantonese and has worked to make his parish an inclusive one. He calls Sept. 11 "one of those peaks, a moment of which there are a handful, in which the parish came through to serve the whole community."
Each year on Sept. 11, the parish hosts an ecumenical service. This year, Father Nobiletti, a Buddhist monk and an Episcopal priest will lead an interfaith community memorial service described as "coming together for the fallen, for those still suffering and for the community."
Though I didn't see it with my own eyes, others did: Monsignor Ignace Sadek, an elderly Catholic priest in Brooklyn, rushed down to the waterfront to pray for the dead and dying as the towers burned. When the first tower came down, the vast and choking cloud of ash lumbered across the harbor to the shores of Brooklyn. No one knew what poisons were in that cloud, but that old priest stood there with his hands raised in prayer, and with terrified strangers falling at his feet begging for absolution for their sins. I think about what Msgr. Sadek did a lot those days, doing what he could for people, with no regard for his own safety.
God Bless all those who were there and lent their hand on that horrible day. I sat in the comfort of my bed drinking coffee thousands of miles away and cried as I watched on TV. I have never felt so helpless.
Thank you. (Hope you're feeling better.)
OFFICIAL WEB SITE
I believe that is true for all of us. It was such a shock. Other than Pearl Harbor, our country had never been attacked. As the day progressed, I recall looking up to the sky and for the first time in my life, not seeing any airplanes. It was so eerie.
Even today, when ever I see and airplane in the sky, I wonder if I keep looking will I see it come down and crash into a building?
In my city, the non-denominational and Christian churches within walking distance all had their doors locked. What a shame, I really could have used a chapel. So I went home and lit all my candles :(
Yes! Me too!
I used to work for a major international airline and traveled frequently between the US and Europe. This was during the golden years of aviation in th 70s to mid 80s, when the worst incidents were empty planes bombed on the tarmac in Italy. Shortly after I quit to raise my daughter, there was the Lockerbie incident where a bomb exploded on the aircraft while flying at 30,000'. The view of the earth from up there is just magnificent and it horrifying to imagine the fear of those passengers knowing they were doomed to death. The same for the passengers that flew into the WTC, Pentagon and PA field. I am so grateful for the beautiful memories I hold from those years when I was able to board an aircraft without fear.
I thought the Maryknolls were Catholic.
True profiles in courage. God Bless the priests who did so much minstry that horrible day.
**”Whenever I hear them, I have to stop and remind myself where I am,” he said.**
I’m not trying to brag, but when I hear any kind of siren, I say a Hail Mary for the people the police of fire fighters are going to help as well as for the emergency officers themselves.
Got the hint from my priest.
Just stop what you are doing long enough to say a Hail Mary!
Wonderful account.
**On the day of the terrorist attacks, there were 19 Transfiguration parishioners missing, but ultimately, there were three fatalities, including one firefighter.**
May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
I am curious.
How filled were your churches the night of 9-11? Ours was packed for a specially scheduled Mass.
It was very busy the Friday right after 9/11 on that Tuesday. I remember walking to my parish church for a special prayer service that Friday night and I had walked with my USA flag and people from home said hi and was pleased to see me with the flag.
My parish church was busy or packed.
I think a lot of people went to Confession that night too.
I will never forget, just gotten to work at my local community college, having called my mother to let her know I had mailed some important letters when she told me on the phone about the first plane having hit WTC Tower 1. She thought it was a movie and she had the wrong channel. When she told me that another plane hit WTC Tower 2 then I KNEW that we were attacked. I was in shock for the rest of the day and could not belive it.
Would not suprised me because we had seen death up close and personal. There is a tower building I used to work, had quit the job I had, working at a restraunt only six month earlier. It had only 38 floors. Tallest in my home state. Still to this day is fearful of going into that tower building.
At the time my church was 50 miles away from my home and I did not go there until the next Sunday. I remember my minister, a flaming liberal, did not give a satisfactory sermon the next Sunday. I felt worse after going and it was kind of the end of the end for me and that church. As far as the churches around here, I don’t know, I was at home glued to the TV.
I wish I could remember that sermon but it is probably better than I don’t.
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