Final onsite Mass at Ground Zero

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Christmas - and the various ways people celebrate - and commemorate. And a solemn tradition at Ground Zero has now come to an end.

Police, firefighters, rescue workers and families of the victims were celebrating midnight mass at Ground Zero for the last time.

Eyewitness News reporter Jamie Roth has more from Ground Zero.

One last time, they gathered at Ground Zero.

"It was a wonderful experience out of a darn tragedy," said a man.

The participants included first responders, victims' relatives, and people who worked on the site in the days and months after the attack.

But Father Brian Jordan says this year's mass will be the last - in part because intensifying construction is making it harder to find a place to hold the ceremony.

The Port Authority says it would be possible to find a new place - but father Jordan and others felt it was time to end the annual tradition.

"A lot of us felt sad this was the last official midnight Mass on-site, but at the same time, there was a sense of relief. This brought closure for us," the Rev. Brian Jordan said after the service ended. A chaplain who spent 10 months at ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks, he has since presided over every midnight Mass there.

"It's just time to move on," Jordan said.

But not everyone supported the decision.

"I think they should still have it," said another man.

This morning Father Jordan recalled the first Ground Zero mass in 2001, when about 150 people braved the weather on one of the coldest nights of the year.

"The fact that they stayed together in such harsh weather conditions was a tribute to their faith and those who died," said father Brian Jordan.

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