Just before 11 a.m. yesterday, the funeral procession bore Firefighter Peter Bielfeld's coffin up Prospect Ave. to the South Bronx firehouse where exactly a year before he had listened to Fire Chaplain Mychal Judge utter these words: "You do what God has called you to do. You show up, you put one foot in front of the other, and you do your job, which is a mystery and a surprise. You have no idea, when you get on that rig, what God is calling you to. But he needs you ... so keep going." The occasion had been the annual memorial Mass at Ladder Co. 42/Engine Co. 73 followed by a rededication at their newly renovated quarters. Judge's remarks had been inspired by a fire on Wales Ave. two days before in which the company had made two rescues. Bielfeld had been among the firefighters who were injured, and he had an appointment at the FDNY medical division in Brooklyn on Sept. 10. He had put it off to the following day, Sept. 11, so he could attend the ceremony. "Love each other. Work together," Judge had continued. "You love the job. We all do. What a blessing that is." Bielfeld had come to owe his very life to such love back in October 1985, when Ladder Co. 42 responded to a blaze in the six-story tenement diagonally across from the firehouse. Capt. James McDonnell had sensed imminent danger, and rather than save himself, he pushed Bielfeld and another firefighter to safety just as the fourth-floor apartment was engulfed in an exploding fireball. McDonnell suffered fatal burns. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Jim McDonnell," Bielfeld said afterward. Every year that followed, McDonnell had been among those who were remembered at the memorial Mass. The rededication of the firehouse in 2001 made the event even bigger than usual, and the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk as Judge placed his hand over his heart and broke into "America the Beautiful." The world was still a day from changing forever, and a few in the gathering seemed a touch surprised by the priest's spontaneous eruption into patriotic song. The whole gathering joined in, on key and off, booming and mumbling, all seeming of one heart. At 8 a.m. on Sept. 11, Bielfeld kept the appointment at the medical division he had put off one day so he could attend the firehouse Mass. He otherwise would have been far away from the World Trade Center when the terrorists struck. Instead, Bielfeld was in the Fire Headquarters building just across the Brooklyn Bridge. He arrived at the scene equipped with only his courage, and he ducked into the firehouse directly across from the south tower. A hurried note Engine Co. 10 and Ladder Co. 10 had already raced from their quarters. Bielfeld grabbed a helmet and tried on the protective bunker gear hanging along the wall until he found some that fit. He took a moment to write a note. "I'm borrowing this gear. Hope to return it. If I don't come back ...," the note began. Bielfeld ended with a message of love to his family. He then dashed across to the blazing tower with the same courage and devotion that the captain who saved his life had demonstrated years before, that our firefighters had been showing day after day after day for as long as there had been an FDNY. At that very moment, Judge was in the lobby of the north tower. A member of the fire patrol told him he was needed on the mezzanine and he headed for the escalator as unhesitatingly as a firefighter. "I'm needed," he was heard to say. On the mezzanine, Judge stood alone at a plate-glass window overlooking the carnage and devastation. A Fire Department photographer entered and heard him praying aloud. "Jesus, please end this right now! God please end this!" Yet another jumper struck the plaza outside and then there was a rumbling as if the sky had been torn open. Judge dashed out on the plaza apparently thinking the north tower was coming down, but then he seemed to realize it was the south. He rushed back inside and most likely died when a hurricane of dust and debris caught him on his way back down the escalator. Soon after, the north tower collapsed. Those who perished with Judge that day included Bielfeld and 12 others who had attended the gathering on Prospect Ave. the day before. Yesterday, exactly a year after that Mass, Bielfeld's coffin was escorted up to the firehouse. A ceremonial bell tolled four sets of five and the procession continued two blocks to St. Anselm's Church. The long rows of firefighters who offered a white-gloved salute included Stan Blaskey, who held his 19-month-old daughter, Courtney, in his left arm. His wife works, so he had taken Courtney to at least 20 funerals in the past year. "Half her life she's been going to funerals," he said "Hopefully, it'll be the last one." After the Mass, the pipe band led the procession from the church playing "America the Beautiful," the song Judge had sung the day before the world changed. The new fire chaplain, Christopher Keenan, headed downtown and went with Judge's twin sister, Dympna Judge Jessich, to the New York Stock Exchange. The trading stopped and there was a rousing ovation for so much more than money as she crossed the floor with Keenan and two other fire chaplains. "Awesome," Keenan said afterward. As had been arranged, Jessich was accorded the honor of ringing the closing bell, and on this day anyway Wall Street was not so very far from Prospect Ave., where they rang that other bell for Peter Bielfeld and played "America the Beautiful."

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