There is much that changes in a quarter century. There are some 8.3 billion people on earth; 3.5 billion or so were born after September 11, 2001; another billion were so young that they have no memory of the events of that day. Over half the world knows little to nothing about the four planes, the nineteen hijackers, the three thousand murdered victims, or the first responders and civilian heroes that emerged that day. Their perspective of air travel and airport procedures, immigrants and undocumented foreigners, is very different from those born in the last century.

On this twenty-fifth anniversary of that tragic 9/11 event, we recall the spirit of brave and loving civil servants and first responders: firefighters, police officers, EMTs, medical personnel, heroes on American flight #11 who alerted airline executives of the terrorist attacks in real time, heroes on United flight #93 who rushed the hijackers and diverted the fourth plane from its target, heroes on the scene at the World Trade Center and Pentagon who saved lives while sacrificing their own, workers that descended upon ground-zero to lend a helping hand, thousands who donated blood and money to help victims, and military personnel who deployed to foreign battle fields, sacrificing themselves for the sake of our nation’s principles of freedom and liberty and to stand strong for what is good, noble, and sacred. As columnist David O’Brien wrote, “American individualism is real, and it is good. When their lives were on the line, many endangered Americans thought not of themselves but of others. Evil is real; sin is real; humanity is limited, but love is not. On 9/11, the USA was tested, and, for one shining moment, it was found worthy.

Though much can change in twenty-five years, far more changes in two hundred and fifty. In this semi quincentennial year of our country, we recall that most of the acclaimed role models at the birth of our nation were military or political heroes. Mentioning military or political heroes today is often met with skepticism, controversy, or push back but I suspect the heroes of 1776 were not much different from those of 2001—ordinary people who acted extraordinarily. Sprinkled among the hundreds of unsuspecting passengers boarding flights in Boston that morning, amidst the tens of thousands of workers in, and visitors to, the World Trade Center in New York, and federal employees at the Pentagon in Washington, they acted as champions. Their stories of courage and bravery were made known in the aftermath of what we witnessed amid falling towers in Manhattan and bloody fields in Pennsylvania.

Among those exemplary souls was Father Mychal Judge, fire department chaplain who ministered tirelessly to dying victims at ground-zero before he, also, died. On United flight #93 were Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Mark Bingham, and Todd Beamer with his battle cry “Let’s Roll!” who thwarted an attack on our nation’s capital by confronting hijackers. There was Welles Crowthers, the young “Man in the Red Bandana,” who mercifully and compassionately saved many lives in the south towers as it collapsed. Of course, there were countless others, like the staff of the Newfoundland Airport in Canada that became a landing stations for hundreds of flights and tens of thousands of passengers that day, emergency responders from across the nation that went to the east coast to help, and even search and rescue dogs that saved numerous lives from the rubble.

The night before the terrorist attack, Fr. Judge said Mass at his fire station. In his homily, he said: “Let’s go out there and do what God has called us to do. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring; we don’t know what’s out there waiting, how big or how small. But what we do keeps us safe. What we do gives us life. Let’s go and do it.” For one shining moment, Americans stood together to do it; and we did it well because though humanity is limited love is not. On this anniversary, let’s not forget the heroes in our world, ordinary men and women who, when called upon, do extraordinary things.