5 May 2024 - Only By Grace Reflections

TOPIC: WOULD I LAY DOWN MY LIFE, AS JESUS DID, OUT OF LOVE FOR MY FAMILY AND FOR OTHERS?

First Reading: Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 98: 1, 2-3, 3-4
Second Reading: First John 4: 7-10
Alleluia: John 14: 23
Gospel: John 15: 9-17

On September 11, 2001, the day terrorists attacked the USA, New Yorkers demonstrated extraordinary courage and risked their lives to save others.

One of these heroes was Welles Crowther, an equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center’s South Tower. He was also a volunteer firefighter.

When hijacked Flight 175 hit the tower, people on the 78th floor sky lobby huddled together, certain that they faced certain death and that there was no escape.

To their surprise, a man wearing a red bandana over his nose and mouth suddenly emerged from the wreckage and smoke, and speaking in a very calm voice, guided them all to a stairway from where they made their way down to safety. He would eventually make as many as three trips to the sky lobby, saving as many as 18 people before the building collapsed.

The man in the red bandana was Welles Crowther. But his mother would not know of his heroic act until a few months after 9/11, when stories from survivors surfaced about the mysterious man wearing the red bandana. Alison Crowther read an article in the New York Times about the hero, and she immediately knew that man was her son Welles, who at the time of his death was only 24 years old. She knew this for certain because since he was a boy, he had carried a red handkerchief. Welles Crowther’s bravery and heroism on 9/11 will never be forgotten.

Today’s gospel invites us to love one another as Jesus loved us. May we love one another as Jesus loved us, just like the man in the red bandana