Heartfelt 9/11 Remembrance In Downtown Huntley

Faith Community Church Pastor Bruce Cole grew up in New York and has a personal tie with the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

He has two relatives who worked at the buildings but were not in their offices when planes crashed into the iconic buildings.

What has resonated with Cole is the story of one Franciscan father who was in one of the buildings. He is considered the first victim of 9/11. His body was the first to be pulled out and his death certificate had the number 1 on top, said Cole, during a memorial in downtown Huntley.

Father Michael Judge was a New York Fire Department chaplain. Judge went into the first World Trade Center side-by side with the firefighters he counseled, he said.

Judge died first to be on the other side to greet firefighters and other victims, a pastor said in Judge’s eulogy. Cole read the quotes from the eulogy.

Our work is to remember the heroes like Judge but not remain in the past but to live in the moment, Cole said.

“My prayer is we can be on earth as Franciscan Father Michael Judge was,” he said. “As an instrument of peace, light and hope,” he said.

Pastor Mark Boster, of Shepherd of the Prairie Lutheran Church and Monsignor Steve Knox of St. Mary Catholic Church also gave prayers.

At Sunday’s noon ceremony, Mayor Charles Sass read a proclamation, titled “We Will Never Forget” made for “all to see that the residents of the Village of Huntley remember always, with solemn respect, those whose lives were taken suddenly, without cause, on September 11, 2001 and all lives since then that were scarified in the name of freedom.”