It was just after 10:46:40 PM on the evening of September 11, 2001, in the chapel of the major seminary of the diocese of Wagga Wagga, Australia (14 hours ahead of us), during a Holy Hour (I taught Scripture and languages in that seminary) that one of the seminarians ran into the chapel and – out loud – said that I had to come and look at the television. I was the only American at the seminary. He didn’t say what it was about, so I ignored him.
A few minutes later another seminarian came in to fetch me saying it was really important. America was being attacked. There are planes… You just have to come. Now. I went. He ran down the long hallway the length of the seminary. I ran as best I could. Now I was worried.
I looked at the television screen and made the sign of the cross, said the Lord’s prayer and the Hail Mary. I still tear up and get angry all at the same time, even now, as I revise and put up this post once again. Sigh…
May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 
Amen. I had already long abandoned the practice of watching TV by then, so I have no experiences common to those who viewed the tragedy live, but I remember that day because, likewise, people came to fetch me, and I ignored them. The importance was driven home to me over the next week as this was all that was talked about.
I also pray for the souls lost on that day. Has it been 20 years already?
That Cross formed by the girders is so poignant … it is a day we all will remember wherever we were at the time. I had been shopping and came home to find my husband glued to the tv. He had thought at first that he had tuned into a film when to his horrow he realised it was a live broadcast from America. We sat there in silence watching the horror unfold.
I was just entering a home to talk to the family about life insurance when the second plane hit. I still fell the same sadness and anger of being an eye-witness to the murderous lust of the “religion of peace.”
My husband and I had gotten home a few hours before from Orlando Florida via Newark airport. The flight had been delayed many hours and we flew over the World Trade Center about 2am and I remarked how beautiful it looked all lit up. Just hours later and it was gone along with countless lives. We both realized that but for the Grace of God our plane could have been one of them. Rest in peace. Never forget.
It was 7:00 a.m. in the morning when I was called by my young daughter to see the news on t.v. She said a plane hit a building. I was busy and thought I would catch the news later. However, at her insistance, I finally sat down with her and within minutes, I witnessed the second plane hitting the building. It finally sunk in that this wasn’t an accident. Life has never been the same since.
Prayers offered up.
Sincerely,
catherine
ON Sept.11, 2001, I was preparing for our weekly rosary club meeting. Our vice president called and screamed “turn on your TV! ” I asked ‘what channel?” and she said, “any channel”. I felt fear mounting. What happened? I asked – “watch” she said.
We watched together in horror while on the phone. I saw the smoke pouring out of the World’s Trade Building and we both thought what a tragic accident. We figured maybe a pilot had a heart attack or something and lost control – and then the second plane hit. We instantly know this was no accident.
I asked her if she thought we should still hold our meeting and she said, YES! We need this meeting more than ever!. So she called everyone and said get to he meeting ASAP. Everyone arrived within 20 minutes and we said the rosary about 10 times. The TV was on as we prayed and we heard the thumps of bodies landing on the pavement. As first we wondered what that was and then the TV announcer said it was terrified people jumping from the building. Never have I seen anything so horrific. People running in terror through the streets, smoke filling the air, and then the collapse of the building and then moments later the second building.
I have friends and relatives who live in NJ who saw the building burning and collapsing – now several of them have health issues attributed to breathing the polluted air.
Pray for the souls of those who perished and for those who are still suffering the effects of that day and also that there is never a repeat of this horror.
Here in Sydney, my children dragged me out of bed, to come to the television, and see something.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, and in addition to that, I was having a painful trigeminal neuralgia attack, a horrible condition which I have now been healed of.
It was a terrible day.
I, too, was in the Wagga Wagga Diocese, having arrived 2 years before, and saw the horror unfold on television that night. Father Robert J Fox had not long left our diocese and was then in the air on his way to the Middle East. Only days before (was it two or three?) he had been sitting in the room where the TV was, talking about Fatima, and I was still carrying the happiness of that visit when jolted back to earth by the attack unfolding on the TV screen.
In the happiness we feel here on earth when in the company of others who love Our Lord and Our Lady we glimpse a little of the happiness shared by the members of the Church already in Heaven, but unlike them we are still on earth amidst the battle and seeing the 9/11 attack, as it was happening, brought that reality home so very dramatically: the opposition of the Church and the anti-Church – the enmity between Mary’s seed and the devil’s – playing out on earth. Those who say Fatima belongs only to the past are wrong for we haven’t yet arrived at the triumph of our Mother’s Immaculate Heart. At Fatima she warned us of Russia’s errors spreading throughout the world. What many do not realise is that one of those errors was a dalliance with Islam early last century. That unholy union of atheistic Communism and Islam didn’t last long but would have serious long term effects.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13523270802655597
The picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe signalled that threat. The crescent moon represented the god of darkness to the Aztecs but for us today it is the symbol of Islam, and I think both meanings were intended. The crescent moon, with star, was adopted by the Ottoman Caliphate (1517-1924) and featured on their flag. The Turkish flag (“al bayrak”, translation: “the red flag”) derives from it.