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by Elizabeth Hansen

On September 11, 2001, Father Frank McGrath watched the collapse of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, knowing his friends – firefighters from Manhattan’s elite Rescue Company 1 – would have been rushing up the stairs.

On September 12, he was at Ground Zero, face to face with the still-smoldering rubble. Eleven men from the company had been killed, and he knew several more from firehouses around the city. 

“As soon as I walked into that area, I was expecting to encounter darkness, death,” he said.

But surrounded by Red Cross volunteers, firefighters and other responders, what he experienced instead was “this remarkable light that you could almost see.” 

“It was coming out of the people,” said now-Msgr. McGrath eight years later. “It’s amazing how from such darkness light can come.”

Looking back, Msgr. McGrath said, that was grace -- nothing else but the light of Christ.

A Connecticut native and a priest for the Diocese of Bridgeport since 1970, Msgr. McGrath serves as pastor of St. John Roman Catholic Church in Darien, about an hour train ride away from New York City. On a nearly monthly basis, he makes the trip to Manhattan and visits the firefighters whose children he’s baptized, marriages he’s witnessed and – as happened in the days following 9/11 – family members he may one day grieve with and counsel.

Mainly he’ll just talk with them or share a good meal, listening to their successes and struggles on the job and at home. And when a call comes in, they’ll often take him in the rig – a chaplain on site where the firefighters will be risking their lives.

Msgr. McGrath calls his ministry to firefighters “a vocation within my vocation,” and one that he’s drawn to “not because I was interested in the trucks and adventure – but I was there basically for the firefighter.”

As a young priest in Bridgeport, his sleep was often interrupted by the trucks leaving a nearby station. One Sunday after an early morning call, one of the firefighters, a parishioner, came up to then-Father McGrath to apologize and invite him to visit the station.

That first visit left a deep impression on him, and he remembered “their skill and heroism and courage.”

A later assignment in Ann Arbor, Mich., found Msgr. McGrath in chaplain training in Detroit, where he was put through some of the same drills that firefighters are trained with. More than crawling through rooms of smoke, though, it was a course in firefighting culture – how command works, how “to support and not be in the way,” and – as one deputy chief told him – how it is that chaplains play an integral role in the firehouse.

“A big part of the job is morale building,” he said. “The chiefs tell you it really helps morale, it helps the guys look to the virtuous side of life more ... (to) joy, a more positive attitude. And often the conversation can turn to religious things.”

“You’re there as a chaplain for the Protestant, for the Jew and for the Catholic,” he continued, “and all of them respect you as someone there for them.”

When he was reassigned to Connecticut, Msgr. McGrath said he drove his car – still packed with his belongings – to the Westport firehouse, even before visiting his new parish. He still serves as chaplain for both the Noroton and Westport fire departments – a mounted ax from the Westport firefighters hangs in St. John’s rectory – as well as Westport’s police department, whose work, he said, he’s also grown to appreciate over the years.

“You get to know them on the inside, and they accept you as one of their brothers,” Msgr. McGrath said of his chaplaincy with the police force. “I find they see you as a brother they can talk to in a way they would not talk to a civilian.”

An introduction more than 20 years ago led to Msgr. McGrath’s friendship with the internationally renowned Rescue Company One. On his first visit to the firehouse, the men took Msgr. McGrath on a call to the Empire State Building. He was invited back, and a deep friendship began to grow between himself and the firefighters and their families.

When he heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center, Msgr. McGrath said, “I knew they’d be there.”

In the weeks following September 11, 2001, Msgr. McGrath devoted most of his time to bereavement counseling, visiting with families and attending funerals.

“Words were not adequate,” he said, describing his time with the grieving family members. What he could offer – his presence and sympathy, particularly as a Catholic priest – had to suffice. 

His belief in the power, the significance of the physical presence of the priest as a sign of Christ and His Church extends beyond Msgr. McGrath’s role as a chaplain and friend of firefighters.

In the current Year for Priests, he hopes priests, seminarians and the laity will see all the more clearly the “greatness of that call.” 

“I was always a very happy priest, but the environment of the police and fire departments for me are extremely affirming,” Msgr. McGrath said. “They want to be the best they can, and when they look at you they expect you to be the best you can. And that has really called me on as a priest.”

Eight years later, Msgr. McGrath believes that the events of September 11 have especially impacted the outlook of America’s younger generation.

“9/11 for many was the death of their own narcissism and self-centeredness, as they saw over 300 of their peers give their lives courageously for others,” he said. “There’s a new humility, a new simplicity and appreciation of deeper values. I still see it in a lot of families in the parish.”

He tells the story of his ride in the company rig to Ground Zero on September 12. A mile out, he said, people had begun to line up, three to four deep, along the highway.

“For every police car and fire truck that went by on its way to the scene, there was this amazing applause and cheering,” he said. “It brought tears to our eyes.”

And as you heard it, Msgr. McGrath remembered, “It was like the beginning of seeing light.”