Homily for the Friday of the Twenty-Third Week of Ordinary Time

September 11, 2026
Theological College
Washington, D.C.

1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22b-27
Psalm 84:3, 4, 5-6, 12
Luke 6:39-42

Today we commemorate with our solemn prayers and reflection the 25th anniversary of a day of great anger. Twenty-five years ago today, nineteen Islamic terrorists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon in Northern Virginia, thereby murdering a total of 2977 innocent people including those forty passengers and crew members on United Airlines Flight 93 who fought the terrorists and, in the battle, prevented the plane from hitting the intended target of either the White House or the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Since the horrific crimes committed on that day, more than 8200 people have died from cancer and other chronic illnesses because of exposure to toxic ash and chemicals in their efforts to rescue any survivors at Ground Zero in New York City. September 11, 2001, must rightly be called a day of anger and we are called to do so in the righteous anger of the People of God.

Aquinas, writing about Anger in the Summa Theologiae II-II, Q. 158, art 8, distinguishes between two types of Anger: “wrath” and “judgment,” and he cites the following quote approvingly: “He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices: it fosters negligence, and invites wrongdoing, while it dissipates courage.” In this homily, commenting on “Anger, when it has a cause, is not anger but judgment,” the preacher argues that failure to be angry at genuine injustice is itself a fault: without righteous anger, “teaching will be useless, judgments unstable, crimes unchecked.”

Twenty-five years ago, we saw the unreasonable wrath displayed by the terrorists in murdering so many innocent people out of irrational hatred and a craving for revenge. But on that date, we also witnessed the courageous judgment of first responders who refused to succumb to cowardice in the face of injustice. The wrath of the terrorists was met by the righteous anger of the first responders as well as by the passengers and crew on Flight 93 who fought back and prevented the terrorists from hitting their intended target.

The Gospel of Peace and Justice as revealed and preached by Jesus Christ requires decisive action and not passive indifference on the part of us, His disciples. Saint Paul writes in our first reading of this Mass: “If I preach the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!” Saint Paul continues, “I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”

We who are called to ordained ministry have this obligation imposed upon us and woe to us if we do not listen and act on it. For, if we do not act on it, wrath and indifference will conquer us both interiorly and externally in our society, and we will be disqualified from the Kingdom of God. To act out of righteous anger in the face of injustice is to act decisively with an anger not detached from reason.

 If we do not do this, wrath will consume us, and we will become blinded by relativism and fall into the pit of revenge and rage with those whom the Lord has directed us to guide out of their own spiritual and cultural blindness. For us to be blinded by wrath is to replace God’s rightful sovereignty in our hearts and minds with a religious ideology of our own self will. It is righteous anger in the Grace of God that not only leads us to justice but also to mercy, peace, and reconciliation. Passive indifference for others will never accomplish this.

As we remember the terrible events of 25 years ago, let us place our anger as an oblation along with the gifts of bread and wine on this altar of sacrifice. Let us ask the Lord to deliver us both from indifference and from wrath, and that He might lead us instead to His Justice and His Mercy that are the loveliness of His dwelling place where we all long to dwell.