Catholics throughout Northern California, joining with those across America, sought solace in private prayer and flocked to their churches in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

On the morning of the terrorist onslaught, people began coming off the streets to pray and light votive candles at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Sacramento. Throughout the week the cathedral became the focal point for prayer for thousands of Sacramento-area Catholics and others, said Father James Murphy, rector of the cathedral.

“The cathedral was overflowing with people all week long—it was incredible how they responded in prayer. It’s been a great turning back to God,” he said.

“I found myself very emotional from the whole experience. People are on edge. All we can say to them is that it’s OK to feel angry and ambivalent, and we have to pray out of that pain.”

On Sept. 11, several hundred people gathered for the regular weekday noon Mass at the cathedral, which Bishop William K. Weigand celebrated.

The bishop, along with other area religious leaders, participated the next day in an interfaith service for students at California State University Sacramento.

He was also one of many religious and civic leaders who spoke to more than 2,000 people at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium Sept. 13 for a community memorial service in honor of those who were killed as a result of the terrorist attacks. He echoed a statement from the U.S. bishops that asked citizens to avoid labeling, stereotyping and jumping to conclusions about who might be responsible for the terrorist acts.

The bishop urged all parishes to hold noontime services, ring bells or hold evening candlelight vigils to mark the Sept. 14 National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, which was also the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross on the liturgical calendar.

He presided that day again at the noon Mass at the cathedral, noting to the overflow crowd gathered that “the cross gives us comfort today—that we as a nation can get beyond this tragedy, that we can together go on.”

Father Murphy, in a homily reflecting on the feast day, noted “in many ways it’s a divine providence that this day of prayer falls on the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. The cross showed us that good can overcome evil, that light can overcome darkness.”

St. Ignatius Parish in Sacramento was just one of numerous churches throughout the diocese which held special services or opened their doors for private prayers following the events of Sept. 11.

At a Mass of Remembrance held Sept. 13 at St. Ignatius, more than 500 people, including clusters of families, the young and the elderly came together in prayer.

Jesuit Father Gerald Robinson, pastor, in celebrating the Mass prayed for “our brothers and sisters who have lost their lives,” and the spiritual healing of individuals, and the nation, pointing to the Gospel’s challenge to love our enemies.

During his homily, he raised the question, “Where is God in all this?”

“The answer is God is not in the death, the darkness. God is not in the loss, the hatred, the evil,” he said.

It is rather in people reaching out to one another, risking their lives to help the stranger next to them, and in places where Catholics come together to pray.

“We need to look around us,” Father Robinson said. “We can begin to recognize here is where God is, in my spouse sitting next to me, the stranger I’ve never seen before…This is where God is, where hope is, in the body of Christ.”

Laura and Ron DiGiambattista and their two children, who attend St. Ignatius School, were among those attending the Mass.

“When the note came home from school there would be a memorial service, we wanted to attend; it seemed like such a small thing to do,” Laura DiGiambattista said. “Its important to worship as a community.”

Holding her 18-month old daughter, Hannah, parishioner Julie Vinson said it was important for her family to be present to remember the victims and “to try to make something out of something so incomprehensible.”

While not a member of St. Ignatius, Ana Arboladura said she attended the Mass because she realized that out of the nation’s recent tragedy good may come.

“The bombings in New York and Washington are a wake-up call,” Arboladura said. “Now we can draw nearer to God.”

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