September 11, 2001, Going Forth
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
Tempered by grief, forged in faith, this is the story of pilgrimage for three Catholics who tried, each in their own way, to heal wounds of those who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001.
Culled from their observations and memories, it is a story of how they partnered with God to help surviving family members reach through the darkness to healing and light.
The Monitor will publish a special 9/11 Remembrance page in the September 15 issue. Readers are invited to send a short message, memory or remembrance on the 10th anniversary of 9/11/01.
Please submit your message by clicking the link below. Your message will be printed in the September 15 issue, and will be posted on our Remembrance page on TrentonMonitor.com.
Submit your 9/11 Remembrance Messages HERE.A Story of Resurrection
Ask Father Kevin J. Keelen about the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and its aftermath and he answers directly: “It changed my priesthood, it steered me to a whole different place in vocation,” a place, as it turns out where consolation is a keyword and bereavement is a ministry he is inextricably called to.
On that bright, blue September morning, the then-parochial vicar from Holy Cross Parish, Rumson, was in Cincinnati, Ohio, celebrating the 40th birthday of a good friend. When news of the attacks started filtering in, he “rented the last car available at the Indianapolis airport and drove back to Rumson.”
Father Keelen, now pastor of St. Barnabas Parish, Bayville, sensed that morning that the Monmouth County community would feel the impact. “So many of our families worked (in the Wall Street) area,” he said. Over the days that followed, Father Keelen would learn that Rumson and surrounding towns, including Middletown where he grew up had indeed suffered heavy losses.
When he arrived in Rumson, he began getting telephone calls alerting him to the growing litany of families with loved ones that perished in the attacks. Mindful of his own grief at several family tragedies including the suicide of his sister only the year before, he began what would become an ongoing ministry of consolation.
“What happened was that we lost 14 parishioners. I got phone calls from acquaintances asking me to go to people’s homes. That made an instant connection,” Father Keelen recalled. “Even without saying a word, the presence of a priest just being there made all the difference in the world to them.
The home visits quickly led to the formation of a support group in Holy Cross that drew 22 widows to weekly Tuesday sessions for several years. He enlisted the help of Marion Fitzgerald, Certified Spiritual director, whom he describes as “the glue that kept the group together.”
“We were able to be a resource for them and we prayed like there was no tomorrow to help them. Just being together without the press or anyone looking in, sharing stories, focusing on consolation was so important,” he said.
The group stayed together for several years, meeting every Tuesday morning in Holy Cross. There were “mind, body and spirit retreats,” where the group shared spiritual exercises as well and “wonderful stories,” he said.
To this day, he said, Holy Cross is regarded by many of the families directly affected by Sept. 11 as “the epicenter" of healing. “It opened the door to people and was there for people and they were able to feel comfortable and let God into their lives.”
It was, he said, an overall approach to healing which, in the end, enabled many of the participants to experience what Father Keelen describes as “God’s gift of consolation.”
Being able to share that gift with the members of the support group and subsequently with others in need of it “put me where I needed to be for myself and others,” said Father Keelen, who is writing a book entitled “Resurrection” on this experience. “Everyone realized that God has called them out of death to a new life.”
“It confirmed me as a priest and put me on a path toward bereavement ministry in a way I never could have anticipated."
The Canopy of Life
Maureen Fitzsimmons, program director for Catholic Charities, came to international attention when author Gail Sheehy recognized her pioneering efforts as “one of the first shepherds” to welcome 9/11 widows and widowers in the Middletown area which lost upwards of 50 residents to “family support groups where they didn’t have to explain or defend their emotions.”
Sheehy described Middletown as “the emotional Ground Zero,” and commended Fitzsimmons for heroically stepping up to the plate.
Talking to Fitzsimmons today, it’s clear that she doesn’t see herself as a hero, just someone who uses her counseling skills wherever they are needed. Her deep faith, which manifests itself so clearly in her everyday conversations, emerges as the silent partner in these efforts.
On the basis of faith, she took it upon herself to reach out though she realized that she was not clinically trained to handle a trauma of this magnitude. And she did it quickly.
“When this happened, all of us (counselors at Catholic Charities), were not clinically trained to handle a trauma of this magnitude and we knew it,” said Fitzsimmons.
However, the team cautiously began to take steps toward reaching out. Though typically, grief counseling doesn’t begin until three to six months after a death, she kept a close watch on the situation and tuned in to the ongoing dialogue in the area.
“We were just listening and listening,” she recalled. “We realized there was enormous pain. So we said, let’s put the word out and see. In six weeks, we were able to start a spouse group, then a parent group, then an adolescent group.”
In such a situation, she said, “you let your heart lead. You have some sense of the person and the family.” She focused on the fact that “grief is idiosyncratic. One size does not fit all. As Church, you offer what you can.”
Fitzsimmons did her best to help the surviving spouses as they worked through their bereavement and communicates with many of them still. As this 10th anniversary approached, she was a constant and compassionate voice as memories surfaced.
“What we are seeing is that they are not forgetting, but they are getting beyond the intense grief and trauma.”
The media attention to the anniversary is serving as a trigger which has compelled some to leave the area during the commemorations and not participate, Fitzsimmons said. Over the years, some members of the support group have remarried, others have relocated and some have returned to professional careers.
One family that suffered the loss of a child has been able to celebrate the arrival of grandchildren. Still others have named newly born children in memory of those who died. Fitzsimmons sees this as “coming under the canopy of life. Life continues and new life brings grace.”
Hope Set in Stone
It has taken nearly 10 years for Rumson native and Holy Cross communicant Stephen Shaheen to forge, and find a place for, the 100-ton tribute he designed and helped carve honoring those who perished on September 11, 2001.
On this year’s 10th anniversary he will stand amid surviving family members as what he describes as this “all-inclusive, community-created September 11 memorial” is dedicated during a sundown event at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Highlands.
The ceremony will finally unite the two huge blocks of marble from which emerge figures depicting grief, despair and hope, with granite boulders from Vermont engraved with the names of all 2,983 victims.
For Shaheen, the struggle toward this moment has been full of challenges and he has met them with good grace and perseverance. “Creating the memorial was the easy part,” he said, explaining it as a way for the community to heal from the devastation of 9/11.
“Our friends and loved ones disappeared without goodbyes,” he said.
Shaheen saw this Project as a way to help the survivors share a proper goodbye with those they lost.
The Project, funded through community support, was not without its challenges and troubles. But Shaheen, stayed true to his vision that the community affected by the loss would have access to the sculptures throughout the process.
Thus, the statues were carved outdoors where visitors and surviving family members could watch and participate. The Project ran more than 30 educational programs, including classes in sculpture and art history for the community. There were also special art therapy sessions for those who lost loved ones on Sept. 11.
Throughout the effort, which he describes as a never ending “emotional roller coaster,” the Christian Brothers Academy graduate and one-time Latin teacher, was buoyed by what he can only describe as a “sense of spiritual energy.”
“I was raised Roman Catholic and I do feel that there was something intensely spiritual about this endeavor. There was a lot of intense energy surrounding this Project and not just the emotions of the living.”
Shaheen said that often, when working at the site, he would “feel the presence of the souls, of the spirits of those who died.”
He remembers, especially, the times when the children of those who died, and their surviving parents, would come visit the project and the way they would reach out and touch the marble in remembrance. These were moments that moved him to the core of his soul.
Shaheen recalled that, on one occasion, he was carrying the names of the deceased in a backpack as he walked to catch a ferry to the Highlands from lower Manhattan. “I was on my way to a decisive meeting that could determine whether the Project would be installed.
“I passed by the spot where ground zero stood. The sun was on descent in the Western sky and shining through the place where the buildings had been,” he remembered. “I could feel the backpack against my back and the lists of the names seemed to be pressing against me.
“It was a moment of great peace and spiritual strength.”
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Tempered by grief, forged in faith, this is the story of pilgrimage for three Catholics who tried, each in their own way, to heal wounds of those who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001.
Culled from their observations and memories, it is a story of how they partnered with God to help surviving family members reach through the darkness to healing and light.
The Monitor will publish a special 9/11 Remembrance page in the September 15 issue. Readers are invited to send a short message, memory or remembrance on the 10th anniversary of 9/11/01.
Please submit your message by clicking the link below. Your message will be printed in the September 15 issue, and will be posted on our Remembrance page on TrentonMonitor.com.
Submit your 9/11 Remembrance Messages HERE.A Story of Resurrection
Ask Father Kevin J. Keelen about the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and its aftermath and he answers directly: “It changed my priesthood, it steered me to a whole different place in vocation,” a place, as it turns out where consolation is a keyword and bereavement is a ministry he is inextricably called to.
On that bright, blue September morning, the then-parochial vicar from Holy Cross Parish, Rumson, was in Cincinnati, Ohio, celebrating the 40th birthday of a good friend. When news of the attacks started filtering in, he “rented the last car available at the Indianapolis airport and drove back to Rumson.”
Father Keelen, now pastor of St. Barnabas Parish, Bayville, sensed that morning that the Monmouth County community would feel the impact. “So many of our families worked (in the Wall Street) area,” he said. Over the days that followed, Father Keelen would learn that Rumson and surrounding towns, including Middletown where he grew up had indeed suffered heavy losses.
When he arrived in Rumson, he began getting telephone calls alerting him to the growing litany of families with loved ones that perished in the attacks. Mindful of his own grief at several family tragedies including the suicide of his sister only the year before, he began what would become an ongoing ministry of consolation.
“What happened was that we lost 14 parishioners. I got phone calls from acquaintances asking me to go to people’s homes. That made an instant connection,” Father Keelen recalled. “Even without saying a word, the presence of a priest just being there made all the difference in the world to them.
The home visits quickly led to the formation of a support group in Holy Cross that drew 22 widows to weekly Tuesday sessions for several years. He enlisted the help of Marion Fitzgerald, Certified Spiritual director, whom he describes as “the glue that kept the group together.”
“We were able to be a resource for them and we prayed like there was no tomorrow to help them. Just being together without the press or anyone looking in, sharing stories, focusing on consolation was so important,” he said.
The group stayed together for several years, meeting every Tuesday morning in Holy Cross. There were “mind, body and spirit retreats,” where the group shared spiritual exercises as well and “wonderful stories,” he said.
To this day, he said, Holy Cross is regarded by many of the families directly affected by Sept. 11 as “the epicenter" of healing. “It opened the door to people and was there for people and they were able to feel comfortable and let God into their lives.”
It was, he said, an overall approach to healing which, in the end, enabled many of the participants to experience what Father Keelen describes as “God’s gift of consolation.”
Being able to share that gift with the members of the support group and subsequently with others in need of it “put me where I needed to be for myself and others,” said Father Keelen, who is writing a book entitled “Resurrection” on this experience. “Everyone realized that God has called them out of death to a new life.”
“It confirmed me as a priest and put me on a path toward bereavement ministry in a way I never could have anticipated."
The Canopy of Life
Maureen Fitzsimmons, program director for Catholic Charities, came to international attention when author Gail Sheehy recognized her pioneering efforts as “one of the first shepherds” to welcome 9/11 widows and widowers in the Middletown area which lost upwards of 50 residents to “family support groups where they didn’t have to explain or defend their emotions.”
Sheehy described Middletown as “the emotional Ground Zero,” and commended Fitzsimmons for heroically stepping up to the plate.
Talking to Fitzsimmons today, it’s clear that she doesn’t see herself as a hero, just someone who uses her counseling skills wherever they are needed. Her deep faith, which manifests itself so clearly in her everyday conversations, emerges as the silent partner in these efforts.
On the basis of faith, she took it upon herself to reach out though she realized that she was not clinically trained to handle a trauma of this magnitude. And she did it quickly.
“When this happened, all of us (counselors at Catholic Charities), were not clinically trained to handle a trauma of this magnitude and we knew it,” said Fitzsimmons.
However, the team cautiously began to take steps toward reaching out. Though typically, grief counseling doesn’t begin until three to six months after a death, she kept a close watch on the situation and tuned in to the ongoing dialogue in the area.
“We were just listening and listening,” she recalled. “We realized there was enormous pain. So we said, let’s put the word out and see. In six weeks, we were able to start a spouse group, then a parent group, then an adolescent group.”
In such a situation, she said, “you let your heart lead. You have some sense of the person and the family.” She focused on the fact that “grief is idiosyncratic. One size does not fit all. As Church, you offer what you can.”
Fitzsimmons did her best to help the surviving spouses as they worked through their bereavement and communicates with many of them still. As this 10th anniversary approached, she was a constant and compassionate voice as memories surfaced.
“What we are seeing is that they are not forgetting, but they are getting beyond the intense grief and trauma.”
The media attention to the anniversary is serving as a trigger which has compelled some to leave the area during the commemorations and not participate, Fitzsimmons said. Over the years, some members of the support group have remarried, others have relocated and some have returned to professional careers.
One family that suffered the loss of a child has been able to celebrate the arrival of grandchildren. Still others have named newly born children in memory of those who died. Fitzsimmons sees this as “coming under the canopy of life. Life continues and new life brings grace.”
Hope Set in Stone
It has taken nearly 10 years for Rumson native and Holy Cross communicant Stephen Shaheen to forge, and find a place for, the 100-ton tribute he designed and helped carve honoring those who perished on September 11, 2001.
On this year’s 10th anniversary he will stand amid surviving family members as what he describes as this “all-inclusive, community-created September 11 memorial” is dedicated during a sundown event at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Highlands.
The ceremony will finally unite the two huge blocks of marble from which emerge figures depicting grief, despair and hope, with granite boulders from Vermont engraved with the names of all 2,983 victims.
For Shaheen, the struggle toward this moment has been full of challenges and he has met them with good grace and perseverance. “Creating the memorial was the easy part,” he said, explaining it as a way for the community to heal from the devastation of 9/11.
“Our friends and loved ones disappeared without goodbyes,” he said.
Shaheen saw this Project as a way to help the survivors share a proper goodbye with those they lost.
The Project, funded through community support, was not without its challenges and troubles. But Shaheen, stayed true to his vision that the community affected by the loss would have access to the sculptures throughout the process.
Thus, the statues were carved outdoors where visitors and surviving family members could watch and participate. The Project ran more than 30 educational programs, including classes in sculpture and art history for the community. There were also special art therapy sessions for those who lost loved ones on Sept. 11.
Throughout the effort, which he describes as a never ending “emotional roller coaster,” the Christian Brothers Academy graduate and one-time Latin teacher, was buoyed by what he can only describe as a “sense of spiritual energy.”
“I was raised Roman Catholic and I do feel that there was something intensely spiritual about this endeavor. There was a lot of intense energy surrounding this Project and not just the emotions of the living.”
Shaheen said that often, when working at the site, he would “feel the presence of the souls, of the spirits of those who died.”
He remembers, especially, the times when the children of those who died, and their surviving parents, would come visit the project and the way they would reach out and touch the marble in remembrance. These were moments that moved him to the core of his soul.
Shaheen recalled that, on one occasion, he was carrying the names of the deceased in a backpack as he walked to catch a ferry to the Highlands from lower Manhattan. “I was on my way to a decisive meeting that could determine whether the Project would be installed.
“I passed by the spot where ground zero stood. The sun was on descent in the Western sky and shining through the place where the buildings had been,” he remembered. “I could feel the backpack against my back and the lists of the names seemed to be pressing against me.
“It was a moment of great peace and spiritual strength.”
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