The Transformation of Suffering
Reflections on September 11
& the Wedding Feast at Cana in Galilee

A Christian Perspective on September 11, 2001

A New Kind of Martyrdom

    The people who lost their lives in the Twin Towers on September 11 are not martyrs in the strict sense of the word. They did not die for a cause. But perhaps we can affirm that they pioneered a new kind of martyrdom. They entered into the kind of redemptive suffering that Jesus himself experienced and manifested. They laid down their lives not just for a cause, but, like Jesus, for the whole human family.

    These men and women were trying to earn a living in that building, Most of them didn't own the companies that were housed there. Many of them were just ordinary office workers, or people who worked in the restaurants or cleaned the place. The heroic firefighters and police officers who went in to try to rescue them are in a special category.

    All of these people have moved into the kind of glory we think of when we talk in terms of martyrdom for religious reasons or for motives of justice. For me, the reason they are martyrs is that the world has moved into a new perspective in which particular causes are not as significant as the continuation of the human family itself. And this is what is being called in question by the terrorist mentality.

    I have already catalogued some of the tragedies of the past hundred years. The amount of human suffering in the form of deliberate violence, brutality, torture, arid indifference that has been experienced and meted out reaches beyond our ability either to comprehend or to imagine. Along with the exponential increase in the human population, there has been an exponential increase in tragedy and violence. One way of conceiving of such horrors is to understand them as a layer of negativity in the atmosphere, a result of the selfishness, enmity, and oppression of the human family that have been accumulating in the past few centuries or probably from the very beginning.

    This accumulation of evil, both individual and social, descended upon the people who happened to be in the Twin Towers on that day They bore, so to speak, the collective negativity and sins of the world at that moment. This is why, in dying, they are martyrs in a very real sense, and thus entered immediately into the everlasting life promised to those who lay down their lives for the sake of others and for justice and peace. Nor are they the only innocent ones who may be so richly rewarded. Given the growing sense of indifference to innocent suffering, the fruits of this kind of martyrdom may extend to everybody who is caught in the crossfire of violence, injustice, and hatred, wherever these tragedies are taking place in the world.

    As we look around and see some of the desperate needs of people--homelessness, exile, prison, destitution, starvation, chronic mental and physical illness--we should also remember that according, to the Bible those who suffer these afflictions are God's special favorites. At the same time, to respond to the suffering of the needy in every way that we possibly can rests squarely on our shoulders.

More information can be obtained by reading the book The Transformation of Suffering by Fr. Thomas Keating.  It is offered in our Book Store.