Compassion: Reflections on This Year’s Theme

On September 14, 2026, Head of School Brendan Sullivan delivered his Opening Remarks for the academic year.

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Last spring, as I was contemplating this year’s one-word theme and the All School Read, I realized early on that, when we came back to school this fall, we would be marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th. Over this past weekend, I am sure you’ve heard a great deal—you’ve watched the images, you’ve heard the stories, and you’ve been reminded of the events of that day.

As I thought about how we would reflect on this anniversary, I kept coming back to the theme of Compassion. Our All School Read, The Day the World Came to Town, gives us an opportunity to think about Compassion and the ways people came together to support one another during a very difficult time.  I want to give you a little bit of a sense of what it was like here at the School during that time.  

We were here in this church together, just like we are now, on that Tuesday morning, September 11th.  We all walked out at about 8:45 am and when I headed into the Front Office, what I saw was the North Tower smoking from a plane crash.  There was a lot of uncertainty. Was it an accident? Was it a small plane? Was it a large plane? What was happening? 

We went about our business after that as we listened and tried to gather more information. Faculty and students went to their first-period classes. At 9:03, I was still in the Front Office. I didn’t have a first-period class, so we were just watching and listening. And then we saw the second plane hit the South Tower. It came in at that point, and it was very clear that this was not an accident, that this was something extremely serious.

As that next hour went on, we continued to watch. We watched as the Pentagon was hit around 9:40. And then we watched as the North Tower actually collapsed. And watching that tower come down, seeing that enormous cloud of dust, was one of the most surreal things to witness. Five minutes after that, we heard about Flight 93, a flight crashing in Pennsylvania. And then, at 10:30 that morning, about an hour and a half after we left the church, the second tower collapsed. 

Fear and uncertainty took over. We knew that there was something very serious going on, something nobody had experienced in their whole lifetime. It was terrifying, quite frankly. 

So I hope you’ll help me with a little exercise right now. Let me ask you this: How many of you have a family member who took a flight this morning?  How many of you have a family member who is down in New York City right now? Put your hands up.  How many of you have family who are traveling or who are out of state or out of the country? And how many of you have a loved one in the city of Boston right now, who is working in the towers? Keep those hands up. 

Look. That’s so many of us. Think about that. Everyone had somebody they were connected to, who they were extremely worried about. So what was the instinct? Get on your cell phone and call to make sure they were okay. 

But when the whole country was doing that at the same time back in 2001, the cell phone system just shut down. You couldn't communicate with anybody. There was this overwhelming sense of uncertainty. The pieces were starting to come together, but it was a crazy and unsettling time. 

Mr. Nerbonne recounts a seventh grader coming up to him, looking him right in the eye and saying, “Will we be all right? Will we be all right?”  And obviously, Mr. Nerbonne didn’t have a lot of answers, but he did say, “Yes, we’re going to be OK, because we are here together.” 

Some families called the School right away and asked for their sons to come home. Other families called and said, “Can we keep our sons at St. Sebastian’s? Can he stay there through the afternoon?” And, of course, the answer was yes.  We kept a lot of people here. For many families, as they were trying to figure out what was happening and what they needed to do, St. Sebastian’s was where they wanted their sons to be.  This is a place where parents believed their sons would be safe. 

We had faculty members with young children in daycare, and you could just feel the weight they were carrying, thinking about what was happening in the world and wondering about their babies at home or at daycare. What would they do? Other faculty members had children who were in New York City, and they were trying to connect with them, trying to find out what was happening and whether they were safe.  

Two students, I remember specifically. One of the students had a father who got on an American Airlines flight that morning at 8:00 a.m. Two of the four planes were American Airlines flights, and two of them had left from Boston. His father was flying to Dallas, and as the day went on, the boy didn’t hear from him. He didn’t know what was happening. 

He spent time in the chapel, and he also went to the nurse’s office, where he could talk and try to make sense of what was happening. The nurse helped him connect with his family and supported him as they tried to figure out what was going on. 

The other boy in that office had an uncle who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. If you listen to any of the stories from that day, you’ll know that Cantor Fitzgerald was one of the organizations that suffered the greatest losses when the South Tower collapsed, even more than the New York Fire Department. 

And so, we waited. We canceled some activities, but we did go back to class. We sat together in the classrooms, and there was teaching and other things going on, but it was a very scary day.  By the early afternoon, most people were off campus. A few stayed around a little longer, but all were affected. 

And how long do you think the school was closed after those attacks? I heard somebody say it: zero. No days. Not a single day. We knew that we needed strength to get through this, and that we were going to be stronger together. We gathered on September 12, back in this church, to pray for the thousands who lost their lives, the thousands more personally touched by those deaths, and we prayed for our country. 

It was definitely one of the strangest weeks in my 30-year career at school, during which there have been moments of great sadness. The boy whose uncle was in the South Tower—we found out later that week that he had passed away. I also had a friend from college, John Schroeder, whom I always like to remember at this time of year. He passed away in the towers as well.  

But there were also so many moments of hope and joy. Later that day, we did hear about the boy whose father had been on that flight. His father was in Dallas, rented a car, and drove back, and they had a beautiful reunion.  There were so many beautiful reunions that week. Families held each other a little bit closer and simply stayed together. 

We felt it was our patriotic duty to get back into class, to get things going, and to keep moving forward as best we could.  It was, as I said, just an incredible and meaningful time here at the School. 

Thinking of 9/11 as I sat in Chapel last year, I listened to Father Boyle speak to you and give you powerful messages. One of his appeals to you, among the many beautiful prayers he shared, really stuck with me: he asked you to “choose Compassion over convenience.” Those words struck me: choose Compassion over convenience.   I love that juxtaposition because he wasn’t asking you to choose Compassion over something like cold-heartedness. Choose Compassion over cold-heartedness—that’s easy.  He was saying, choose Compassion over convenience.  

Everything we watch every day—every commercial, every ad—is something that will make life more convenient for us. We’re constantly being encouraged to look for those conveniences.  Father Boyle was asking you guys to do something more, something difficult: to choose Compassion over convenience.  

That word, Compassion, was in my mind as I was looking at book options for the All School Read. The Day the World Came to Town seemed to capture that message beautifully. It tells the story of the people of Gander, who really did have a choice.  They are isolated in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, and 38 planes landed in their town that day. 

What did they know about these planes? They didn’t have all the information, but they knew that East Coast cities were being attacked—or were going to be attacked—and that terrorists had taken over planes and were using them to carry out those attacks. So suddenly, 38 planes landed in their small town, many of them headed for the East Coast. 

To me, choosing fear would have been the natural reaction. Choose isolation. Isolate the passengers. Don’t let them leave the airport. Keep them there. Give them whatever they need but isolate them.  But the people of Gander made a different choice. They opened their arms, and they chose Compassion. 

Our book this year, The Day the World Came to Town, has so many wonderful stories. There are just two that I want to highlight this morning.  

The first is the story of Hannah and Dennis O’Rourke. They were an elderly couple returning to New York City from a vacation in Ireland. They were on an Aer Lingus flight that had to land in Gander, and they were told, “We’re touching down because there have been planes that have struck New York City.” They knew that their son, Kevin, a New York City firefighter, was working that day. They were stuck 1,000 miles away waiting with uncertainty for days and days.  

Beulah Cooper, a resident of Gander, and mother of a firefighter in another part of Canada, recognized what these parents were going through. She made it her mission to be there for them.   She would be by the O’Rourke’s side and comfort Hannah throughout the next week.  She called the local Catholic priest and organized a prayer service inviting others to come together, pray for Kevin, and share that experience with them. 

Through that time, Beulah and Hannah forged a very deep and meaningful relationship. And, of course, we find out at the end of the book that Kevin did not make it. He was one of the firefighters who passed away. But that friendship stayed strong for years afterwards. They would visit each other. There were trips between New York and Newfoundland. If you get a chance to watch the two of them speak together, it’s really a beautiful connection that they shared, and they maintained it right up until last year, when Hannah passed away at 91 years old. They kept that friendship alive for so many years. 

Kevin’s story reminds me of Friday night and the Red Bandana game, and of Welles Crowther. I certainly thought about the book The Man in the Red Bandana as we began this school year. We’ve had this as an All School Read before, and I know many of you have read it and know the story. But this Friday night, while I was watching the BC game, a commercial came on for the Welles Crowther Trust. It described how a red bandana became a symbol of bravery and compassion. And there it was—that word, compassion—flashed right up on the screen.    

Welles was going in. He had that courage because what was inside of him was a true Compassion for his fellow man. He was not going to save a relative. He wasn’t going to save a friend. He was going to the towers to try to help strangers. 

We will celebrate his courage, and the courage and Compassion of first responders, later this year, specifically firefighters. We have a program in November to honor them. But I did want to take a minute today to reflect on that story.  As many of you know, Welles was a good friend of Mr. Pohlman’s. We think about Mr. Pohlman this week as well—for him, for what he lost that day, and for the loss of a wonderful friend. 

The other story from the book that I know mattered to a lot of people I spoke to was that of Rabbi Levi Sudak. The rabbi was so devoted to his faith. He was determined to live as the person he was meant to be. And so he lands in this country, in this town where there is no kosher food.  But because of his deep convictions and his faith, he did not eat. He would not eat food that wasn’t kosher. That’s what his faith compelled him to do. 

It was two days before they were able to bring in the food he needed and for him to prepare it properly before he even ate.  And then he’s there on Tuesday, grounded in Gander. By Friday night, he’s given the opportunity to fly out. He can leave Gander and go home.  But Friday night is when the Sabbath begins, and he can’t fly on the Sabbath. That’s what his faith tells him. So, he stays in Gander. He does not get on that plane home after all that’s gone on—all the craziness and uncertainty. He chooses to stay because of his faith. 

If there was ever a time when you could give somebody a pass on their faith, right? This would be the time. Go ahead, get on that plane. I think everyone would have forgiven him. Nobody would have questioned his decision. 

But for him, internally, that was what was right to do. He did not view missing that plane as a setback. He had this spiritual conviction that he was meant to stay a few more days in Newfoundland, that he was meant to be there just a little bit longer.  That decision proved to be so profoundly meaningful. It gave him the time and provided him with the opportunity to connect with Gander resident Ed Brake. 

Ed Brake had been living in Gander for many years, and he never told the story of his life. He was a Holocaust survivor. He left at a young age and he changed his identity. He stopped being Jewish because he was in fear for his life. He traveled to Gander, stayed there, and never told anyone his secret. In the days following September 11th, he finally told the rabbi and was able to free himself from that burden.  And the rabbi had the opportunity to respond with incredible Compassion. 

I told my friend Jean Lynch that we were using Compassion as a theme for the year. And she wanted to share with me one of her favorite reflections, which is this: “We are never as close to God as we are in our compassionate moments.” 

And that is what we are called to do. We are called to get closer to God. That’s why we start our day and our week in this church. We start every day in the chapel. That’s what we’re called to do. We’re called to walk with Christ. 

When I talked to the freshmen last week, I spoke about imagining what it would be like to walk with Christ. Imagine walking with Christ 2,000 years ago, during those three years of his ministry. You’re one of the apostles. You’re walking with him. The story of Jesus is growing, and the excitement of what Jesus has to offer is incredible. And you’re walking with him into a town that is anticipating his arrival, a town that can’t wait to listen to his words. You get to walk in with him and experience that energy, that excitement, that spirit that would have filled the town. 

That’s what we’re called to do: to walk with Jesus. Our ultimate goal is to walk with him and the communion of saints. But we also walk with him in the Passion of Christ. That word, passion speaks to his suffering. Its original meaning is derived from the Latin word: passio, meaning suffering, or enduring serious hardship. That’s where the word Compassion is derived from as well.  

If you take the word “passion” and you add that root “com”, it indicates that the enduring hardship is shared That prefix is also seen in community, camaraderie, and comfort. Those are the things about us being united, being together. And to walk with Jesus is to be compassionate—to walk with him in his Passion. We’re called not only to walk with him in his glory, but to walk with him through that very last walk of his human life, through his Passion, so that we may also walk with him in his glory. 

In times of fear and in times of anguish, we counter those feelings with courage and compassion. And I call on you to intentionally choose Compassion this year, and have the courage to do so. I call on you to follow the examples of Compassion from the book, from history, and from our own community.  

 I also call on you this year to be compassionate toward yourself. That’s a challenge that can sometimes be a little harder. Ed Brake is an example of someone who carried a burden for many years. He was probably somebody who could be compassionate toward others, but had a harder time being compassionate toward himself. I think we all feel that way sometimes. And we’ll also continue that discussion later this year. 

Your final call to action is to think about how the word “passion” came to have the meaning it has today – a deep desire, a deep love for something. 

If you think about the evolution of that word, if you declare your passion for hockey, or your passion for mathematics, or your passion for the guitar, a passion for going to steakhouses, or a passion for another person, what you’re saying is, “I’m willing to endure many hardships for my passion.” 

If it’s an athletic or artistic pursuit, “I’ll put in those hours of practice.  I’ll endure the struggle because of my passion."  If it’s an academic subject, “I’ll go the extra mile, I’ll meet with my teacher. I’ll do the work outside of class. I’ll engage in a club that really speaks to my passion” That’s the approach you should take this year. 

And when it comes to another person, understand that the relationships we have with one another are difficult. They take work. In those relationships, there will be hardships. There will be struggles. But to endure those hard times together is a beautiful expression of passion There’s a lot to this year’s theme and I know that you’ll be discussing it in your classes this week. I look forward to diving deeper into the theme with you later this year.