Remembering The Priest Who Showed Up — And The 9/11 Walk That Honors Him
(ANALYSIS) Twenty-five years is a long time.
For New York, it’s enough time for a new generation to grow up knowing Sept. 11 only as history. It is enough time for neighborhoods to change, buildings to rise, children to become parents and memories to begin to fade around the edges.
Some memories are not meant to fade.
This past Sunday, New Yorkers gathered in Manhattan for the annual “Walk of Remembrance,” retracing the path taken by Father Mychal Judge on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
The walk is more than an anniversary ritual. It is an act of memory — a deliberate refusal to allow the people who died that day, or those lost in the years that followed to 9/11-related illnesses, to become names in a history book.
Judge, a Franciscan priest and an FDNY chaplain, was killed in the North Tower after rushing toward the World Trade Center to help those in need. His death was the first officially certified fatality of the attacks.
To the people who knew him, Father Mike, as he was commonly known, was never simply a statistic. He was the person who showed up.
The walk began at St. Francis of Assisi Church, where Judge served, and follows the three-mile route he took as he hurried toward the World Trade Center after the first tower was struck. The route ended at St. Peter’s Church, near Ground Zero, where Judge’s body was carried after he was killed.
“I remember all those heroes that I remember the journey of Father Michael Judge,” said FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore. “We end down by the Trade Center, and this is where he said goodbye to us. And this is just a real time of reflection and remembrance.”
There is something powerful about remembering a tragedy by walking through it. History can become abstract, nut footsteps make a memory physical. They force us to consider distance, direction and the decisions people made in moments when they had no idea what the next few minutes would bring.
Father Judge walked toward danger, as did thousands of others.
And for many of the people who gather each year, Sept. 11 is not an event that happened once. It is something that has continued to unfold across 25 years — through funerals, illnesses, anniversaries, empty chairs and memories that remain painfully vivid.
Remembrance is not simply about looking backward. It is about deciding what we are unwilling to forget.
The story of 9/11 is told through its extraordinary moments: The collapsing towers, the smoke, the rescue efforts, the bravery, the loss. But underneath those enormous events were everyday acts of bravery. People ran toward the suffering. They prayed. They carried strangers. They comforted one another. They showed up.
Father Mike showed up, too. And 25 years later, so do the people who walk his path.
Clemente Lisi serves as executive editor at Religion Unplugged.