I wasn’t able to watch that night. I started to but had to leave. There was a clip of bodies jumping, falling, from the top. Only days later did we come to know that 343 firefighters lost their lives. Many people on lower floors were able to escape, but no one in Windows on the World survived, including seventy-two of the restaurant staff. There were terrible scenes of people covered in white debris running away from the buildings, panic stricken.
Mother also gave us all general permission to use the phones and call whomever we needed. I wanted to call Sally, but had no way to reach her; I did not know her number. I remember David saying she was coming in from Chicago to celebrate Mama’s birthday. I tried calling directory assistance or whatever it’s called these days, but there was no listing for a Sarah Feinstein in Chicago. I didn’t know the name of the dog grooming salon or Mitzie’s last name. I was in a quandary over what to do. I decided to just wait, hopefully Sally would call me, and she did, the next day, Wednesday mid-morning. She had been trying to reach David or Mama all yesterday; all flights into New York had been cancelled; she missed going to 42nd Street with them. She still couldn’t reach Mama; did I know where she could possibly be?
I could just barely get it out. “Sally,” (Take a deep breath, Baruch) “Mama and David went out yesterday morning for a birthday breakfast…they were UP…THERE…they didn’t…” And I couldn’t say anymore, but Sally knew.
“Oh, Becky…I can’t believe this…I can’t…” and she couldn’t say anymore. We both hung onto the phone without a word. “I am coming in as soon as I can. I have a key to Mama’s…to our…apartment. I will call you again when I get in, if that’s okay, and I will come down to see you…” She couldn’t go on.
“That will make me so happy if you do. Please call, and if you get our answering machine, leave a message; I will check it all day long.”
The Sisters, well, most of them, watched the news each night for the next five nights in place of recreation, after which Mother put the television away. Our two postulants were visibly shaken by it all; they were both New Yorkers after all. I also got two long-distance calls that first weekend. The first from Gwendolyn who called from London. She too was a “New Yorker” for many years and loved the city. She was shocked and worried and scared and angry and anxious if I was okay. She was even more shocked when I told her about Mama and David. Her last words to me were: “Hang in there, MB, I’m on the next flight over to see you…if there’s a room available, I’ll take it, if not, I’m sure Brooklyn Heights has some very nice hotels. On second thought, I’ll get a hotel reserved before I come…I’m going to need something a little stronger than Compline.”
The other call was from Lancashire. I didn’t break down when I heard Gwendolyn’s voice, but I did when I heard Ezra’s. He was calling only to ask if I was okay. His Aunt Sarah was fine and hoped my mother was too. When I told him, he was too shocked to speak, but promised he would offer Mass for Mama and David that very evening. He couldn’t get away, but would be home after Christmas, and would call me again soon.
I felt so utterly desolate. But not alone. I had a deep sense of the presence of the Lord through all this, and that my “family” included all my Sisters here too. We would hold each other up and get through this. We certainly didn’t have all the means to grieve as the outside world did, but we had the best. We have the Lord and the Prayer of the Church, His Prayer. O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.
The novices and postulants were very subdued and attentive to me, but I also knew they were carrying their own grief, and I had to be there for them. I told Mother I would not tell the novices about my mother and brother yet; I want them to have their own time to grieve. Along with Sr. Agnes Mary, I suggested we have a rosary novena even though it wasn’t October, the month of the rosary; we could devote this one to what we came to call the “tragedy of nine-eleven.” We would pray for all the victims and also for their families. They liked this idea, and we did it the forty-five minutes before Vespers each night, which we normally had reserved for class after the afternoon work period.
Our Lady has a very soothing way about her, and our quiet rosary was like a balm of comfort over the novitiate. And over me. Sr. Kolbe seemed the most depressed by it all, and I made a mental note to have a chat with her. She was young, actually they were all young, and the harsh reality of life had never hit them. They are the generation that has had everything handed to them, kind of, although I think they are also stressed out in more ways than we ever were. The rosary helps to concentrate the mind at least for fifteen minutes, although the Lord knows the mind can be doing cart-wheels around the globe and on a roller coaster of emotions. We’ve never discussed him, yet, but I’ll have to get her talking about her patron, St. Maximilian Kolbe. He knew the harsh reality of life.
Sr. Diana was older but more fragile. Her faith-life was not tested yet by a real crisis, till now. I think she finds certain little things in our life difficult; things she wasn’t aware of when she entered, but that’s usually true for all of us. She’ll be okay, I hope. She was very grateful for the rosary novena.
Sr. Myriam is still with us in the novitiate, but will be integrated into the senior community in another month. She’s probably been the most emotional about it all. She’s also a New Yorker and mentioned after 9/11 that she had been to the World Trade Center several times. She’s eaten at Windows of the World with her father who works on Wall Street. He is safe and has talked to her, but still…
Sr. Maureen was hard to read. Her usual light-heartedness was turned into a sullen kind of heavy-heartedness.
Sr. Mary Cecilia seemed emotionally detached from it all, but I think that may just have been a cover up. Although that’s very subjective on my part; I can’t imagine someone being detached from it all.
And poor Sr. Brenda seems the most distraught by it all, and spends all her free time in the chapel, which is fine. This is her first major crisis here, and I hope and pray she pulls through it. Being an emergency room nurse probably has lots of disturbing memories. I asked her if she wishes she was there now, helping out. And she said: “No, I can do more here.”
And Grace, our Fashion Institute graduate, is also very upset; she didn’t want to come to the rosary, and I excused her. It took the longest time for her to be able to talk to me about it. She had friends who worked in the World Trade Center.
The rosary novena is not an original idea; this was a common practice among the sisters in the infirmary. When I went to see them on the Thursday following 9/11 (two days after) they were already praying a rosary-novena. Sr. Gerard, who already suffered from a doomsday-complex, was convinced that the end was coming soon. “The fire will fall from heaven,” she said as soon as I saw her. “Get ready, Sr. Baruch, the three days of darkness will happen soon.” We all certainly hoped not, but Sr. Gerard had everyone in the infirmary half convinced that this might be it. They all had blessed candles in their night tables, just in case, except Sr. Bertrand who didn’t give two hoots about all that “end of the world malarkey.”
Sr. Bertrand also said she’d never go on the rooftop garden again and that the airplanes could have crashed on our roof. It was better to stay cooped up in the monastery than to risk attack. Getting the attackers’ names and motives was going to be Sister’s big challenge, but she was up to the task. She had served for four years in the Women’s Army Corps. I could tell she wasn’t happy when Mother put the television away and told us that we’ve seen enough. Sr. Bertrand didn’t complain outwardly. She accepted things under holy obedience – and whatever The New York Times reported. It was almost like Lectio for her.
Sisters Amata and Benedict were the most prayerful and started the novena to calm everyone else down. “It’s all in God’s hands,” Sister Amata would say. And of course she was right. We don’t understand why things happen, but we know that nothing is outside the knowledge and love of God.
Sr. Gertrude, my dear Sr. Gertrude, sat silent in her wheelchair
. Her eyes were puffy and her hands trembled a bit. Of all the Sisters who were New Yorkers, and there were many of us, the attack on the World Trade Center affected Sr. Gertrude the most. I didn’t have the courage to tell her my mother and brother were among the dead. I would tell her when the time was right; it wasn’t time yet.
And at night after Compline, I would stay behind and let the presence of the Lord pour over me, if that’s the right word. I didn’t feel anything; I was still a bit numb from it all, but I knew He was present, and His presence was healing. And I prayed as consciously as I could for the souls of Mama and David. I sat there for them; it was my Catholic “sitting Shiva,” and I would do it for seven nights. I could even slip off my Nike sneakers and let my feet touch the cold floor. I knew I had to pray for them, because, well, because we don’t know, do we? Can “baptism of desire” stretch that far to the secret corners of Mama’s heart when she wanted to know the truth; when she thought about God in those in-between moments, or when she went to shul and closed her eyes and listened to the Kol Nidre; when she kept the Sabbath and drew the light to her face—was it not You, Lord Jesus, who are the hidden Light? All the years that she lovingly prepared the food for Pesach, and ate the Seder every year of her life; listening to Your Word and loving her family. Did she not love You, Lord, in loving us?
How much I would have loved to have seen her come to know You in the fullness of the Faith: the very Word, the One and Only Word made flesh who dwelled among us. Do you not save a piece of broken matzah in your heart for Your Chosen People in all the mitzvahs of life which You kept and fulfilled. I don’t know how Mama prayed to You, but I believe she loved You because she saw everything as a blessing. She was always praising You, Lord, in her own unique way. Papa came to know and believe in You; He knew You were indeed the Messiah and Son of God. The grace You sent his way through Mother John Dominic and Fr. Meriwether; and now Mama knows all that; and Lord, You filled her with the grace of reconciliation when she came to me, like the Prodigal Mother, and the love which had been buried for all those years, came alive. Hannah of a Thousand Silver Hairs, and not one of them has gone unnoticed by You; and every salty tear she shed, You have counted, and haven’t they counted for something, Lord? Are they not a type of baptism because they sprang from the depths of love? And maybe, Lord, You have put me here to pray for her, in her place, to pray for the salvation of her soul, and to do penance and weep with sorrow for her sins which wounded her at times and which she covered up and hid from us all by her sarcasms and complaints. She made us laugh; she made me cherish the beautiful things of life, and to enjoy the food and drink of earthly families and festivity. She gave me karpas but even more she gave me charoset and taught me to embrace the bitter herbs and sweetness of life because You are the Lord and Giver of Life. I know You love her so much more than I do, than Papa did, than any human being ever could; You love us more. You love her more, and her heart is bursting with joy to know You now…let her be a catechumen in Purgatory; she’ll be one of your loveliest students.
Mother of God, my dear Mother of Perpetual Help, and Comforter of the Afflicted, my dear dear Jewish Mother in Heaven, embrace Hannah Feinstein for me and bring her to your Son. I tried in my own poor way, and I hope it touched enough to stretch her will to desire to know the Truth. Bring her to Papa when the time is right. Mother of God, tell Yesuvah that I am willing to undergo any suffering and any cross for the salvation of her soul…and that goes for Ruthie and David and Joshua.
That had been my Kaddish, along with a rosary, and the Salve Regina each night. Added now to Our Lady’s train in our nightly Salve Procession are Mama and David…Turn then Most Gracious Advocate, your eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the Blessed Fruit of Your womb, Jesus.
And finally, dear Lord, I commend my poor self to You, Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on me. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit and the fire of Your Love, for I am an orphan now, Lord, and I feel like I have died. Amen.
Psalm 88
Lord my God, I call for help by day;
I cry at night before you.
Let my prayer come into your presence.
O turn your ear to my cry.
For my soul is filled with evils;
my life is on the brink of the grave.
I am reckoned as one in the tomb:
I have reached the end of my strength,
like one along among the dead;
like the slain lying in their graves;
like those you remember no more,
cut off, as they are, from your hand.
You have laid me in the depths of the tomb,
in places that are dark, in the depths.
Your anger weighs down upon me:
I am drowned beneath your waves.
Part Two
. …called by God, like Mary, to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his words they are converted to the Lord, withdrawing from the empty preoccupations and illusions of the world, forgetting what lies behind and reaching out for what lies ahead.
(Fundamental Constitution of the Nuns, III)
Chapter Seventeen
September 11, 2002
Because God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living. (Wisdom 1:12)
There was much ado made over the first anniversary of 9/11. We didn’t see any of the coverage or special tributes, which is fine. I’m sure it will be forever embossed in our memories, at least till our generation passes on. I remember we had silent meals for a week afterwards as we couldn’t concentrate on the reading; sacred music was played instead, and it was healing. But the deeper healing from it all takes time too, and some wounds will probably never heal, or at least always leave a scar. On the anniversary we again had music, but this time it was the Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber which was played at the Memorial Service on September 15th at Ground Zero last year. It (The Adagio for Strings) is so moving, we couldn’t eat, but sat in silence and prayer till it was ended.
Tragic events certainly shape the way we think and feel about life, probably more than the joyous and happy times. I know that’s so for me when I look back over my life. The death of a loved one becomes the pivotal point, or deepening point that influences the rest of one’s life. I wonder why that is? Fr. Ambrose once said to us in class that he preferred preaching funerals more than weddings. We all kind of giggled, but he meant it. And he said it’s because people listen differently at a funeral…we are plunged into mystery, and we want a word of consolation or understanding. (We are plunged into mystery at a Sacramental Marriage too, or a Solemn Profession, but they are different. Although, like death, they point to eternal life beyond which they are a sign.) But I know what Fr. Ambrose means.
I thought a lot about this place of “death” in our lives during the year following 9/11, and sometimes it seems that we need to talk about it with others, to make sense of things.
By September 2002, it was a year since my sister Sally came to the monastery for the first time. We had had our reconciliation, for lack of a better word, at our sister Ruthie’s funeral, several years before that – especially by my being able to spend two nights with her and Mama and sit Shiva with them for Ruthie. There was a “death” that brought about life—a new life, a new relationship between Mama and me, certainly, and also between Sally and me, and through them, eventually with my brother, David. Isn’t it strange how “death” which separates one from life, as we know it and live it, brings about union?
At first Sally seemed frightened to be sitting in the parlor, speaking in soft tones like we were in a police interrogation room, being observed through a one-sided mirror. I was able to fill in Sr. Paula before Sally’s visit. Sister was a natural for making people feel welcomed. She knew then that Sally lived in Chicago, was Jewish, of course, but didn’t really practice her faith, and she (Sally) was nervous about actually coming here to see me. She had been a journalist once and saw a lot of life, but s
he had never been to a monastery of nuns.
Ten minutes after Sally arrived, Sr. Paula quietly knocked and brought in the usual Pyrex pot of coffee and a plate of (not usual) croissants and orange marmalade. I don’t know how Sr. Paula could have ever known that orange marmalade was Sally’s favorite, but there it was. She smiled and left as quietly as she came in.
“Isn’t she the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean that she’s cute, cute, but how quietly she came in and left, and look at this!” Meaning the orange marmalade. “She’s certainly very young to be a nun, isn’t she?”
“Sister Paula? She’s almost forty now, maybe older, I can’t keep track.”
“Forty? She doesn’t look a day over twenty. Speaking of age,” (we were?) “you still look like you’re in your thirties!”
This was Sally breaking the ice, of course. She fixed us each a cup of monastery coffee, and a croissant for herself. I had to catch my breath for a moment as she looked so much like Mama at the moment, when Mama would fuss over our coffee. I was half expecting her to pull a bottle of Mogen David out of her purse. She took a swallow of her coffee, and she grimaced the same way Mama would.
“It’s the Brooklyn water,” I said.
“The Brooklyn water?”
“Our Sister Bertrand blames the bitter after-taste on the water, not the fact that it’s institutional over-ground coffee, with chicory mixed in. But it’s such a blessing we get brewed now, and not the instant kind.” That made Sally relax and smile.
“Oh, Becky, I still can’t believe Mama and David are gone and in such an awful way; I can’t even think about it; it’s giving me nightmares. How are you bearing up?”
“I’ve had a few bad days and nights, but the Sisters are good—we’re all feeling the impact of it, and we hold each other up. Mother Rosaria has proven to be one of the grandest…one of the grandest ladies I’ve ever met. She’s able to express sympathy to each Sister in a way that that Sister needs it, and she does it all without thinking about herself and her own grief.” Sally sat and sipped. “I live in the novitiate with the young Sisters, and I am trying to be there for them, each in her own grief. One of the postulants, Sister Brenda, lost her grandfather who was a retired volunteer fireman, who came out of retirement, just to help…and of course, he didn’t make it. Like you, I can’t think of the details of any of it. I have to keep turning it over to the Lord.”
The Middle Ages of Sister Mary Baruch (Sister Mary Baruch, O.P. Book 2) Page 18