Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Victim 0001: A chaplain's last walk into the fire

theblaze.com · 3d · first reportShare

In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus remarks that a good shepherd will leave 99 sheep to go looking for one that is lost. FDNY chaplain Father Mychal Judge spent most of his life living out some version of that — with alcoholics, AIDS patients, and firefighters on their worst nights. On the morning of September 11, 2001, at 68 years old, Fr. Mychal did it one last time. He left his friary and walked straight toward the fire that everyone else in the city was running from. 'I'm not finished here.' Inside the North Tower lobby, Fr. Mychal stayed close to the men he had come for. He moved through falling debris and the bodies of people who had jumped, stopping again and again to kneel, to anoint, to bless, and to pray for whoever was in front of him — the dying and the already dead, treated with the same unhurried attention. Someone offered him a way out, a seat with the officials heading somewhere safer. He said no. "I'm not finished here." Witnesses remembered his lips moving witho