On this National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, we gather to mourn the victims of Tuesday's horrific attacks. At the center of our sorrow are the thousands who have died in the wreckage wrought that day. Many of us have personal connections with those who may have died and with their grieving families. Our hearts go out to them as we feel the deepest sympathy and compassion – which means we suffer with them.

Yet awful as is the suffering visited on the direct victims, the casualties extend much further. No community in this country or in any other country is exempt. We have all been diminished by these terrible deeds. We are fearful as we see the full horror of how distorted, how perverse, human motivation and action can become. And we must be on guard that we do not in turn also become instruments of self-delusion and hatred.

In particular for our Columbia community, we must be sure to maintain and strengthen the core values that characterize our common life. We are a community that encompasses and affirms diversity. We come from every ethnic and religious tradition in this country and from many of the nations around the globe. We must continue to reach out across lines that mark unbridgeable divisions in much of the world. At precisely the time when the march of events threatens to drive us apart and turn us against each other, we must come together. We must rise to the challenge of rebuilding out of the wreckage that terror has wrought.

The rebuilding will be literal: the fabulous landmarks of the skyline of our city will be recreated. But the rebuilding must also go beyond literal reconstruction. We must build on our common humanity so that in the generations to come we – the human race – will see the devastation fueled by such hatred as an unthinkable self-inflicted wound.

Our Columbia community is one of the places where this rebuilding must begin. Today we mourn victims of an unspeakable tragedy – victims that in the end also include all of us. But in and through our mourning, let us also hold fast to our ideals of inclusiveness and mutual support; let us reach out to each other across the lines of our differences; let us join our hearts and hands as we unite in the urgent work of rebuilding that we must undertake together.